Joyful Shadow (Snippet)


Now this was a view that I'd never get tired of. Despite the circumstances that led to me coming here, where I was right here and now was one of the best perks that could ever come from living in this admittedly fucked up world. The rising sun that slowly broke ebbed the cool shadows of the night away as daybreak began to peek out on the horizon. Seeing the cracks of sunlight beginning to cover the sprawling large "village" (he always felt it'd be more appropriate to call it a city) below was always a welcomed sight to behold.

Especially since...

...Wait for it and prepare to be jealous...

They were currently watching it all happen on THE most iconic monument in the whole of the village AND anime: Hokage Rock!

Mouth Rushmore eat your heart out! Technically, I haven't been to Mount Rushmore in my past life but the first time I looked upon that glorious carved mountain with the faces of my grandfather, granduncle and third Hokage, I knew that any hypothetical chance of experiencing my old world's monument would be lackluster in comparison. Hm? Oh, right I kind of got ahead of myself and started talking without context.

Greetings, everyone! My name is..., um, so should I start with my original name or my new one... Technically they're both originally my name, but I'll just keep things simple. I died and somehow got reincarnated into the world of Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto. Well, I think it's the world of Naruto. Please don't ask how I died because I have no clue, which is weird because I remember all twenty-three years of my old life, but can't for the life of me figure out how I died. Every time I try to remember, I get this sharp cold feeling in my chest and...contentment? I dunno, I'm still trying to figure all of that out to this day.

So back to the whole Grandfather and Granduncle business, I should probably start by saying my new name since the old one isn't important enough to bring up now. So, hello, my name is Kisuke Senju and I'm currently seven years old. Hah, I bet that has your attention now! Now before any speculation comes to play I'll just cut the middleman and reveal that I am indeed the grandson of the second Hokage of Konoha, Tobirama Senju.

Now I'm sure you're screeching, "Impossible! Tobirama never had any established children in canon!"

And I would have to agree with any of you who went through the same aneurism as me when I figured that out. Which goes back to how I doubted that this was the exact Naruto world that I read in my old life because barring my existence, Tobirama did not have two sons. One of them being his eldest son and the other the youngest. Currently one is alive while the other perished the night of the peace treaty between Konohagakure and Kumogakure at the climax of the First Shinobi World War at the hands of Kumo's treacherous Gold and Silver Brothers, who would then later be the ones to assassinate my grandfather.

...Just to be clear, my father, Tanjiro Senju was the youngest son, who actually lived to give birth to me. Now his story surrounding about how he would later slay the sociopath brothers who ate the innards of the nine-tails to get powers is something I'll get to at a later date. Along with how he met and later fell in love with my mother, who also played a vital part in the deaths of the Gold and Silver Brothers.

The morning winds brushed against my dark skin and blew back my white, spiky (I have no idea how it's like this) hair. So like my father, I'll keep it brief about my mother. Her homeland of origin was not Konoha, she's originally from Kumogakure. Oh, also I have no clue why but she looks oddly like that character from Bleach, uh...Yoruichi! That's her name. The only difference was that her hair was black and her eyes emerald green with dark sclera.

So, yeah, before you ask, I'll just keep it brief about her true family relation and say a couple of things.

She has a single letter for a name, and currently I'm dreading the day where I'll inevitably have to face my eldest cousin and his tag-team octopus partner to the death in this world's third world war. Well, if I manage to live long enough through the second war that's bound to happen...

Anyways! So yeah, I'm Kisuke Senju and I'm the reincarnated soul of some fool who has selective amnesia about his own death. So as expected, nothing is as it should be like in canon starting with my existence and the existence of my parents. And that's not even mentioning what the fuck happened to Orochimaru!

By now my sudden placement in this jacked up world of killing, espionage and ninja magic should have been actively changing things after I was born and made a decision to do something, NOT before! And trust me when I say that there's a lot that's changed! The RO-*AHEM!* I mean Anbu agent that my Godfather assigned to watch over me hidden in the trees behind us will attest to that. Well, you can try, but they'd probably kill you or bring you in to get tortured and interrogated for knowing too much.

I shivered because I already met who was watching me and was freaked out that she would literally do that because she's basically the same age as me.

So now I'm kind of just going through the motions of my life as best as I can. This new body of mine took a while to break in after that god awful infancy period that I will not describe to save you all the boredom and me the diaper ridden shame. I trained, studied, practiced clan etiquette and procedures then go to the academy to train, study, and suffer through school with a bunch of kids while possessing the body of young boy with a twenty-three year old man's mind.

Well, not all of the kids were bad. After all, I was currently sharing one delicious snapped two stick popsicle with my worrywart of a partner in cr- I mean best friend! We just sat up at the top of this gargantuan rocky monument and talked the time away as the sun rose up in the sky.

"Hey, you ever wonder why we're here?" Minato Worrywart/Complicated Name Generator Namikaze wondered aloud.

"You know, that's the question, Minato. That's one of life's great mysteries isn't it? "Why are we here?" Are we just the byproduct of some insane rabbit woman's crazy plans or are our actions dictated by some comic artist, who has a plan for all of us despite ruining his work by never letting it die and giving it to another comic artist to continue... I-I don't know man but it keeps me up at night..."

"..."

"..."

The poor blonde doof continued to look at me as if I've grown a second head. "W-Wwwhaat? I mean...why are we always up here on the Hokage Rock every morning before its time to go to the Academy. We're always cutting it so close to being late whenever we do this..."

Oh...I thought we were getting into some philosophical territory so I could probably spin the whole comic artist and rabbit woman into something else to sound smarter. Now I just feel stupid...

"O-Oh, uh..." The best course of action I could do was save face. "Y-Yeah, you're right, that is a fair question, um..."

"What was all that stuff about a rabbit woman and comic artist?"

"I-It's nothing, I just had a weird dream was all..."

"Oh..." Please don't look at me like that Minato, I was just trying to slip a Red vs. Blue reference for fun! Now you're making me feel like I'm some crazed weirdo jabbering about some random nonsense.

...Okay so I technically was, but still!

"Okay, I understand..." Then please stop looking at me like I'm a looney please. Seriously, I'm sorry for trying to act cool. "You wanna talk about it?"

Hell no! "No." I squeaked while stuffing the last of my popsicle into my mouth. I tried not to wince as it grazed my teeth. Yup, this sure was the start to a great day...

*SIGH!*


So, yeah, I just wanted to toss this out so I can get the idea out of my head to focus on my Danmachi fic. This is literally my first attempt at writing in the first person, so I welcome some criticism. Now the story wouldn't start from here, this is just a snippet of the idea that I decided to write down.

So the SI is born and placed in the story just before the start of the Second Ninja World War in an AU Naruto universe. I was inspired to write something like this by the other SI stories, Peerless Darkness and Catch Your Breath and decided to focus it around the timeframe of Minato's generation. I know that Tobirama's descendants are overdone but I felt like it afforded me some interesting ways to explore the relationships between canon characters.

Now things would've been difficult to plot out in the timeline since Kishimoto can't bother to date events in his story to save his life so I'd have to make inferences myself of character ages and the time of events if the provided online Naruto timelines don't hold up.

Now before you ask about Orochimaru, I just have two words for you: Rule 63.

No the story would not have been a harem just a single pairing.

I really wanted to write more for this snippet, but I felt that this should be enough at my first attempt at First Person POV. It'll take some getting used to, but I'll see if I can maintain the drive to continue with this idea or not.

Also what thoughts would you guys have for his bloodline limit: Wood Release, Gravity Release, or something different? Well, thanks for reading and there's a poll up on my profile. If you decide that you want this story then I'll go for it, if you decide that I should write for any others then I'll just delete this and go back to work. Well, try to go back to work, I'm starting to get ready for internships and finalizing my graduation for next year so there will be obvious delays, but still! Vote!

Well, I said my piece. I'm out so peace out and have a lovely day!