Author's Note: Greetings to all of you lovely denizens of the internet, without whom there would not be too much point in uploading this fanfiction! I am Amaterasu-Absol, and for NaNoWriMo I decided to finally start writing the Naruto fanfiction that I've had in the back of my mind for a while.

While self-inserts tend to turn off a lot of people, good self-inserts are my favorite types of fanfiction to read. I'm hoping this fanfic ends up good enough that at least some people will mention it when talking about how self-inserts can be good.

If that ever happens however, that won't be for a while. These early chapters will be somewhat rough since I'm writing them for NaNoWriMo, but I hope that they are enjoyable nonetheless.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Red.

That was the first thing I saw after my reincarnation.

The red I saw was the hair of Kushina, but I wasn't aware of that at the time. I was a bit too busy suffering from a mix of information overload and confusion.

It was cold, and everything hurt. How did I get here? Where IS here? What IN THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

I began to scream. I could hear other screams, so maybe I wasn't the only one in this situation. Something went across my face. When I opened my eyes to look at it, I saw a red blur.

A loud noise interrupted my screaming. Suddenly it was cut off, and there was silence. The air felt different; it wasn't cold anymore for one thing. I realized that something was carrying me from behind. Then I was moved roughly, and the air changed again.

I could hear noises again. It sounded like one of the screamers had started up again. Whatever was carrying me was warm, and the screamer was a lot quieter, so I managed to stay quiet.

A strange rumbling came from above me. I realized that it was a voice. Someone was speaking. I tried to ask them what was going on, but my voice wouldn't work properly. Something came out of my mouth, but if I had no idea what the heck I'd just said, how was the voice supposed to?

The screaming grew louder. And here I'd thought that the screamer had calmed down. The rumbling continued, and I felt something touch my head repeatedly. Was I being patted? It provided a nice soothing contrast to the screams, so I hoped that someone was getting me out of this situation. Maybe if they'd do the same for the screamer, everything would quiet down.

HATE.

IT HATED ME.

I didn't know what IT was. I didn't know why it hated me. I didn't even know I could tell that I was being hated. But if someone had yelled at me every day of my life that they hated me, and hit me just in case I hadn't gotten the message, it would have been less obvious to me than IT'S hatred of me.

I couldn't even scream at the HATE aimed at me. A part of my mind noted that the screamer had stopped as well. Despite this, the rumbling continued. I was moved closer to the rumbling, which the sane part of my mind was thankful for.

All of a sudden, the HATE stopped. I'd never felt so much relief in my life. Admittedly, my current age could be measured in minutes, but I was including my previous life since I wasn't aware of that at the time.

I felt the air move. Come to think of it, when did it stop? I was adjusted slightly as I wondered this- HATE.

The shock of going back to HATE after being free from it shut me down. I only snapped back into reality when I realized I was lying down. Hadn't I been carried before? Now that I think about it, how was I being carried? I'm definitely not small enough or light enough to be carried easily.

I tried to ask the rumbling if they were still there. The HATE had decreased, but I still spoke as quietly as I could. When I didn't get an answer, I tried to speak louder. When I still didn't hear anything, I began screaming for help.

Despite how long it felt, it took only a few more minutes for the HATE to stop. Once I stopped feeling it, I passed out.

Things were quite boring for a while after that. I slept, drank something that was given to me, heard several babies cry, and slept some more. After a while of this, I realized that I'd been reincarnated.

While it was quite obvious in hindsight, the utter chaos that had occurred immediately after my rebirth was not conducive to figuring out what had happened to me. The fact that I didn't remember dying didn't help. Once I'd managed to stop being in a state of utter terror at the thought of IT coming back during the times when I was awake, I figured it out pretty quickly.

My love of self-inserts immediately made me assume that I'd been reincarnated inside a fictional universe. Considering that I'd managed to feel HATE when I had trouble reading emotions from people that I was actually speaking with in person in my previous life, I felt that some magic/supernatural/superpowered ability had to exist in my current life.

If I had to choose a fictional world to reincarnate in, I would have chosen Persona. Sure the world almost ends every few years, but it always gets stopped in the end and the rest of the time I could live a normal life with internet and air conditioning. It's easy to avoid the supernatural occurrences, and my knowledge can help me if I choose to get involved whether or not I become a Persona user.

Hayate the Combat Butler would be a better option if I'm being honest. Not much more crapsackiness than real life, and if I get to live in a comedy-shounen-romance manga if I meet up with the main cast.

Either way, if the internet exists in this world and I have access to it, I'm going to look up several fictional companies to see if they exist in the world that I'm in. I really hope I'm not in Black God, Ga-Rei, any version of Evangelion, or a Shin Megami Tensei game.

It would have been useful to know how long it takes for a baby to be able to see clearly. It wouldn't have changed anything, but I didn't know how old my twin and I were until our first birthday. That wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't for the fact that I was doing my best to avoid thinking about everything and everyone that I'd lost due to my reincarnation and keeping track of dates would have helped distract me.

I'd already known that I was sharing what I assumed was a crib with another baby. I'd heard two other screams shortly after I'd been born, and I bumped into something warm that moved away whenever I rolled around. From what I could remember, the person that I'd referred to as 'the screamer' was our mother. It was somewhat embarrassing to have referred to her in that way, but I didn't hear anything that sounded like her after that time. The rumbling noise was probably our father, but I didn't hear him again either.

When I was finally able to see the other baby, I felt relieved. If I had a twin in this new life, then I was eager to interact with them. Unless they were also a reincarnate that kept their memories, I would be mentally older, so I was hoping to be the best older brother that they could ask for.

My twin had blond hair, blue eyes, and black lines on his cheeks. I couldn't tell their gender, but they were quite fussy. They cried a lot, and the other babies in the area would start crying as well. In order to quiet down all the babies in general and my twin in particular, I decided to try patting my twin on the head. That had stopped me from screaming when our mother had started up again, so I hoped it would help my twin out as well. Fortunately for my ears, it worked like a charm. The other babies also cried less, so presumably whoever was taking care of us was also satisfied.

Around the time that I discovered how to calm my twin, I began to sense the people around us. Explaining my chakra sensing to others always feels awkward to me, but I'll still try to describe it in a way that makes sense.

That was an unintentional pun. In English anyway. Which you don't speak or even knew about until I gave you access to this file, so I'm not sure why I bothered to draw attention to it.

My chakra sensing operates like a 360 degree sight that only 'sees' and 'feels' sentient beings. At least, I can only 'see' and 'feel' people and summons. I 'see' a filled-in outline of everyone in my range. The color that fills in the outline depends on the personality of the person. I can also 'feel' the temperature of the color.

I can sense emotions as well. The metaphor of 'seeing' breaks down a bit when describing this. I can 'see' the emotions that everyone is feeling based on a different color, but this fills the outline of everyone in my range as well. I suppose it would be like seeing heat signatures while also seeing normally.

If someone is naturally cheerful and is currently feeling happy, then I can 'see' two yellows that each fill their outline without ever touching or overlapping. I can also 'feel' the two yellows in different ways. It makes perfect sense when I'm using it, but just trying to describe it sounds off.

I can also tell things like if someone is lying or under a genjutsu based on the 'vibrations' of their chakra. More powerful people tend to be 'brighter' and as such, I can sense them and their emotions more easily.

All of this is completely natural for me. My chakra sensing is just as much a sense as my main five, and while I can turn it off, it costs no energy to keep it on.

I was unaware of all of this when I first started sensing others. All I knew was that I could suddenly 'see' all of the adults in what I would later learn was about half the room even when my eyes were closed. Since I obviously wasn't seeing them with my eyes, I wondered if I was able to sense auras, souls, or something along those lines.

The adults that were taking care of us were bright and warm. Whenever they were near what I assumed was one of the other babies in the room, the colors that I could feel would comfort me to the point that I would usually fall asleep. Even if I didn't fall asleep, focusing on the colors distracted from thinking about my previous life, so I enjoyed it when the adults were focused on one of the other babies.

At first I would cry whenever one of the adults came over to my twin and I. They would always feel red-black whenever they looked at us, and it freaked me out. It was only when my twin began to follow suit every time an adult came that I stopped. I realized that the color and feeling that I felt from them for a short while after that was relief.

Learning how to walk took me longer than it really should have. The people that I mentally referred to as 'caretakers' would still feel red-black when they tried to teach my twin and I had to walk, and that always ruined my concentration. I still started walking before my twin, but I don't think beating an actual baby is much of an accomplishment.

This was right before the time that I learned that my twin was male. I'm thankful that I can acknowledge that now since it's been surprisingly troublesome to remember that I didn't know his gender until this point, and always referred to him as my twin as a result.

The range of my sensing slowly increased as I used it more. One day, I fell over from shock at what I felt while toddling over to a waiting caretaker. If our caretakers were as bright as stars in the night sky, this person was as bright as the sun. I had no idea how the heck I'd missed them before.

A caretaker brought me back to the crib I shared with my little brother as I tried to think about who I'd just felt. I decided that it must be someone who could use magic/supernatural abilities/superpowers. I'd already realized that my little brother and I were in a hospital, so I assumed that they were a patient in a different room.

After a few more months, I revised my assumption. There were three people with magical superpowers in the room, and they didn't move all day. Two were behind, or at this point I believed in, walls and one was in the ceiling. At night, they would be switched out with three other people.

I decided that these people had to be guards. As arrogant as it was to assume that they were here for my little brother and I, I decided to assume that I had been reborn as someone important to the plot until proven otherwise. At the very least, the only reason why you'd have six superpowered people guarding a room full of babies and caretakers was if one of them was important in some way.

One of the most annoying things about my life around this time is that no one would say our names.

At this point, I could understand some of the words that our caretakers used. I'd learned their names, the names of some of the babies in the room, and some random words that were often related to medicine.

I intended for my little brother's name to be my first word in my new life. Unfortunately, our caretakers were not willing to help me accomplish my goal.

The random Japanese words that I'd learned in my previous life made me know that 'Oni' and 'Kitsune' are not actual names. While there are some fictional characters with names like those, I chose to believe that our parents did not want us to become villains when we grew up. At the very least, if that was their intention, I doubt that most caretakers would agree with that,

This finally made me realize what the red-black that I could sense from our caretakers was. With the benefit of hindsight, it was quite obvious. Red-black means hate.

The only excuse I have for how long it took me to realize this was that IT had messed with my perception of what hate was like. I didn't have my chakra sensing at that time, so I couldn't connect the dots until I heard the insults.

My little brother and I were in the care of people that hated us, and there was nothing that either of us could do about it. I hoped that when we got moved into an orphanage or adopted by someone that the adults there wouldn't hate us. Neither of us deserved that, and I wasn't sure what I could do to help my little brother if he could also sense their hate.

One day, I woke up to the sound of chaos. Our caretakers were rushing around, people were running in and out of the room, and all of the adults were feeling several colors at once.

My little brother and I were bathed, clothed, and fed quickly. All of the chaos going around was exciting him, and he was babbling happily at me. I was too worried to respond.

All of a sudden, I felt someone enter the room. Considering that people had been entering and leaving the room all day, this ordinarily wouldn't have been a surprise to me. What was surprising was what I felt from that person.

I'd gotten used to the feeling of the superpowered people that were always in the room. I had assumed that all superpowered people would be as bright as they were. Suffice it to say, I was very, very, wrong.

I'd compared all of the superpowered people in the room to suns before. This was the moment that I realized that they were better compared to moons. This man was a sun, and his brightness made me too scared to move.

He stopped at our crib. My little brother looked up and toddled over to him. Then, he picked us both up.

"Hello you two." He said, smiling. He looked old, but not extremely old. "My name is Hiruzen Sarutobi, and I am the Third Hokage of Konohagakure."

What.

"Naruto, Renge, happy birthday!"

Crapbaskets.

Hiruzen put us back in our crib. "I brought presents for you both."

Thank Kaguya it's not Berserk.

Reaching into a bag at his side, Hiruzen brought out a pair of monkey onesies and a pair of stuffed monkeys. The part of my mind that was still paying attention facepalmed at Hiruzen's taste in gifts.

"I have to go back to work now, but I hope you enjoy your gifts." He patted us on our heads and then walked away.

Naruto went over to one of the monkeys while I had the dawning realization that I was an idiot.

IT was Kurama, raging against humanity in general and Konoha in particular. The red blur that I'd seen had been Kushina's hair.

Wait, did Hiruzen call me Renge? Did Minato and Kushina seriously name me after the villain of The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi? They couldn't have named me Menma or something?

On a more important note, am I a jinchūriki? No, probably not. Considering how much Kurama's presence affected me, I would have noticed if Minato stuck him inside me. I could be wrong, but I'll assume that I'm not a jinchūriki unless I see the seal on my stomach when I mold chakra.

I really hope that I'm in the canon Narutoverse and not an AU version like that one Haku story. For the sake of my anxiety, I'll assume that this is canon until proven otherwise.

In any case, I'm the twin brother of the eponymous protagonist of Naruto.

I'm going to need to make a plan to deal with everything that will happen in the future. Better yet, I'll make several plans.

I'll start working on that tomorrow. I'll spend the rest of today alternating between panicking and complaining about what will happen. At least I can start counting dates now.

Chapter word count: 3130

Date uploaded: 11/03/2022

The Haku fanfiction that Renge mentioned at the end is Walking on Thin Ice by BANIX. I recommend it to anyone looking for a good read.

Until next time!