DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NARUTO—PLEASE SUPPORT THE OFFICIAL RELEASE!
|PROLOGUE
My lungs burned as I ran like hell.
I could feel my legs going numb and my chest felt like it was on fire. I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep running for much longer, but I also knew that if I did stop running I was going to get the absolute shit kicked out of me.
Stand up to your bullies...they said. A bully will leave you alone if you fight back...they said. Yeah, that advice is great if it's a one-on-one! I gritted my teeth as I turned into an alley between two trailers.
As I did, I had to stop suddenly when I came face to face with a fence.
Behind me, my six pursuers had finally caught up. They were out of breath too, but unlike me, they were all smiling as they blocked the only way out of the alley.
"Why were you running, Sasuke?" asked the lead fucker. His nose was still bleeding from where I had socked him earlier. "I thought the Uchiha's were supposed to be good at fighting? Aren't you a powerful ninja?"
This is why you don't name your kid after an Anime character! I thought as the six assholes rushed me. They attacked in a wave of flailing limbs. It was obvious none of them knew how to actually fight. They all just balled their fists and swung their arms like windmills.
I managed to get one good kick in, hitting the fucker in the front right in the nuts before I was completely overwhelmed. I tried to keep fighting back—kicking and punching as best I could—but life wasn't a movie.
The little training I had from the boxing class I took once a week didn't help when it was six-on-one—that's twelve fists and twelve feet all trying to hit me at once.
John Wick...IP Man...Daredevil...Batman and a bunch of other movies and television shows made it seem like a skilled fighter could take on half a dozen less-skilled fighters all at once.
That just wasn't true.
The truth was that it didn't matter how good of a fighter you were. If six dudes really wanted to hurt you then they would.
I saw a flash of steel and felt a burning pain in my chest. My body balled up as I collapsed to the ground, trying to withstand the shock. I couldn't tell what had happened.
I tried to move, but my body wasn't listening.
"Oh shit!"
"What the—what the hell dude!"
I looked down to see a knife stuck between my ribs. Huh, no wonder they're scared, I thought as the bullies immediately fled the alley.
"We gotta get the fuck out of here!" one of the shouted as they ran off.
I watched them go through blurry eyes, my chest still burning. So hot. Beyond anything that I'd describe as pain. Was I really going to die from a stabbing? Holy crap...I was really going to die!
"Oh my god!"
I looked up at the hazy figures crowding around me. Strangers who had noticed the commotion were watching me. Most were on their phones...and they weren't dialing 9-1-1 for help. They were recording. I was dying, and they were all recording it. What the hell was wrong with them?
Only one man tried to help. An elderly man who looked like he was on death's door himself.
"Y-you're bleeding...you won't stop bleeding!"
I'm bleeding? I blinked, trying to get the world to come back into focus.
Well, duh. I was only human. If you stab me, I'll probably bleed all over. Damn, this is starting to hurt though...
Now the burning feeling in my chest was starting to fizzle out. Instead, an intense, frigid cold was attacking me from head to toe. That... That's probably bad... People die once they bleed too much, don't they?
Shit. This might really be it. The pain and the heat were pretty well gone by now. It was just cold. Cold as hell.
I felt as if I was gonna freeze in place. I was going to die. I could feel it, and I hated it. Why was I dying? What had I done to deserve such a grisly early death?
There was a sound like jingling bells and a translucent box appeared floating in the air above me.
Request reincarnation?
Yes or No?
What is that? I tried to speak. And failed. I tried to reach out and touch the box, but I didn't have the strength to lift my arms.
I summoned up my remaining strength, striving to whisper one more word. "...yes..."
Confirmed. Reincarnation requested.
Just then, with what remained of my increasingly oxygen-deprived brain cells, I cursed his anime-loving parents for the millionth time.
God dammit! This is why you don't name your kids after Anime Characters!
That was the last thought I had on the mortal plane.
|NARUTO|
The first thing I noticed the next time I opened my eyes was that I couldn't see. Everything was completely, 100 percent black.
The second thing that I noticed was that it was eerily quiet. No noisy neighbors or traffic driving past my house—nothing. Nothing except the really loud and annoying sound of my alarm clock ringing next to my ear.
I smacked my hand out blindly and hit something that must have been the alarm clock because the incessant ringing stopped.
Now that I had a moment to think, I realized that things were different. The first of which was that my sheets felt weird. They were all slippery and cold instead of my usual warm flannel ones.
I climbed out of bed and immediately stubbed my toe. "Shit!"
Who the hell moved my nightstand? I wondered as I took another step forward. My room had looked the same my entire life and I'd been able to find my way in the dark for years now.
"Son of a bitch!" I cursed as I stumbled into what I thought was a bookshelf.
It was so dark in the room, I couldn't see a thing. Not only was it dark, but I didn't even remember getting home the night before. The last thing I could remember was being attacked by that group of asshats in the alley.
When I finally got to my bedroom doorway, I tried without success to find the doorknob.
My hands felt nothing but air.
I reached up tentatively to touch my eyes, terrified of what I was going to find. There was something over them.
Tentatively, I pulled whatever was covering my eyes off my head and peeked them open.
"It's just a sleep mask!" I sighed in relief.
That explained it.
Well, sort of.
I had never worn a sleep mask to sleep before. Still, this is better than the alternative, I thought as I tossed the mask away. For a moment I had been worried that the assholes who had attacked me had done permanent damage and blinded me.
"Hello?" I said warily, blinking against the sudden brightness.
No one answered.
Finally able to see, I noticed that I was in a room that I didn't recognize at all. The room was practically bare; the only pieces of furniture I could see were a small bed and a nightstand.
I left the spartan bedroom and cautiously made my way down an unfamiliar hallway. As I passed a mirror in the hall, I stopped in dead in my tracks.
I wasn't alone.
"Shit! You scared me," I said, turning to the teen who was standing behind me.
But...he was gone!
I turned back to the mirror. There he was again. Short, with black eyes and spiky dark hair that hung over his face as bangs.
I lifted my hand—and the stranger lifted his hand too!
I touched my face—and the stranger in the mirror mimicked that action too!
"What is happening?" I whispered. But I already knew. There wasn't another person in the hall.
The kid in the mirror was—me!
Wait a second...? I stared at my face. I knew this face. I had seen it hundreds of times when I watched my parent's favorite anime with them.
I winced as his head pulsed and a memory flashed through his mind.
"Father! Mother!" Sasuke Uchiha was shouting as he raced down a hallway.
"Sasuke...You must not come in!" He heard Fugaku Uchiha shout on the other side of a door.
Sasuke pushed the door open slowly...the figures of his mother and father collapsed on the ground spurring him on.
He flew into the room.
"Father! Mother!"
Itachi glanced at him; his face hidden by the moonlight.
Sasuke's face was damp with sweat, and his eyes were twisted in fear. "Itachi!" he shouted, taking a step on trembling legs.
He began to speak desperately, spreading both his arms wide.
"Itachi! Father and Mother are—how? Why? Who would do—"
Itachi flung a kunai into the door behind him.
"Ah!" A narrow cut appeared on Sasuke's shoulder, exposed by the rip in his shirt.
"Foolish little brother..."
Father...
Blood spray.
Mother...
Itachi...
The Uchiha crest ripped apart.
Two people covered in blood...
Suddenly Sasuke was crawling on the ground. He turned just his face toward Itachi. "Why...did you...?" he tried to ask.
"To measure my capacity."
"...Measure your capacity? You...you killed them for that?"
"I had to."
"What's..." Power came back to Sasuke's body as righteous anger filled him. "What's wrong with you!"
Unable to move properly after being caught by the Mangekyo Sharingan, he simply leaned forward as if to start running, and fell over.
Before him was the face of his father, the spark of life in his eyes gone.
In that instant, Sasuke got up and found the strength to escape the room. He ran out of the house and fled into the street.
Itachi appeared in front of him in an instant.
Sasuke shook his head. "This isn't real. My brother wouldn't do this. Because—"
"Pretending to be the kind brother you hoped for...was to determine your ability. You will be an opponent to test my abilities. You have that potential in you. You felt anger and hatred toward me. You've always hoped to surpass me, so I'll let you live...for my sake. Just like me, you have the power to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan. But there's a condition."
Sasuke stayed silent.
"You have to...kill your closest friend."
His eyebrows shot up.
"Just as I did..."
"That was you...you killed Shisui?"
"And now I have the Mangekyo Sharingan. In the main hall of the Nakano shrine...underneath the seventh tatami mat from the far right, there's a secret clan meeting place."
"What?"
"There you'll find the true secret of why the visual jutsu of the Uchiha clan exists, and for what purpose."
Sasuke's face was full of questions.
"If you awaken it, then there will be three people who have the Mangekyo Sharingan, including me. If that happens...then I'll be right in letting you live."
Sasuke looked alarmed.
"You've not even worth killing."
"Baby brother, you're pathetic."
"If you want to kill me, settle for hating me! Hate me and live like the coward you are! Clinging to life!"
"And someday, when you have the same eyes as I do, come to me."
Trembling, Sasuke collapsed as though his strings had been cut. The eyes he looked at his older brother with filled with a crimson light.
He had gained another power to live. The timing was appropriate.
Itachi leaped into the sky, about to disappear.
"Stop!" Sasuke chased after him and threw three kunai that had appeared in his hand at some point.
Itachi dodged two, but he couldn't completely get out of the way of the last one. He tilted his head slightly and took it on his forehead protector; the force of the kunai undid the knot where it was tied. The kunai plunged into the ground, and Itachi's forehead protector tumbled down next to it.
Sasuke charged at him from behind, breathing hard, his shoulders heaving. Itachi slowly picked up his forehead protector.
With the Konoha mark facing off to the right, he tied it roughly and vanished—
When the memory ended I was lying flat on my back, breathing hard as though I had been running.
"Okay, okay, stay calm," I told myself, running a shaky hand through my hair as I stood up.
The memory played over and over again in my mind, and I saw Itachi standing over the bodies of Fugaku and Mikoto Uchiha.
And it definitely wasn't a dream or even a nightmare...it was a memory. A memory of Sasuke Uchiha.
But why was I seeing that? And why did I look like the anime character my parents named me after?
I tried to remember what had happened between getting my ass kicked in an alley and waking up as an anime character. The space between those two moments was fuzzy. I could remember a bit, but nothing that was helpful—nothing that could explain why or how I had ended up where I did.
First, there was darkness and silence—like existence had just disappeared. A void. Like everything had ceased to be. Then there was the light. Was it even light? It had been hard to tell. Slowly, the light had begun to expand, and grow brighter and brighter. Then there was sound. White noise. Voices? Definitely voices, but distant.
I shook my head and sighed as I stared at the mirror on the wall. I had to focus on the here and now.
And right now, the face being reflected back at me in the glass was absolutely post-time-skip Sasuke Uchiha.
"What is going on?" I groaned, massaging my throbbing temples. The things he knew about this world, about the future—it was horrifying.
Orochimaru's Invasion. The Sound Four. The Akatsuki collecting Tailed-Beast. Pain destroying the Hidden Leaf. A fourth shinobi world war! Madara Uchiha coming back to life and a super-powered alien princess being freed from her prison!
The amount of destruction Konoha would face in less than a decade made me want to curl up in a ball.
In a brief moment of insanity, I considered telling someone. Then I immediately shook the thought away.
No, I couldn't possibly do that. No one in their right mind would believe me.
In fact, the more likely scenario was that I would end up being worked over by Ibiki and the Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force before being handed off to a Yamanaka to be mind fucked.
I was going to pass on the torture, thank you very much.
Which left me with the option of preparing as best I could and making sure I was strong enough to survive.
In a world like this, that was really my only choice. Sure, I could have left the ninja life behind and become a civilian. I'd probably be able to eke out a decent living in the village. But being a civilian wouldn't keep me safe. Not from the likes of Orochimaru who wanted the Sharingan or Danzo who hated the Uchiha.
How is this my life now? I wondered with a morbid curiosity. None of it made sense!
First: I was from a totally different dimension. There wasn't even chakra in my world! Not unless you counted the focal points used in ancient meditation practices and that was nothing like the Chakra in Naruto.
And what about that floating box thing? It looked almost like a status—
With a sound like bells jingling, a translucent purple rectangle materialized in midair.
Name: Sasuke Uchiha
Age: 17
Chakra Reserves: 1/5 (Academy Student)
Ninjutsu: 0.5/5
Taijutsu: 0.5/5
Genjutsu: 0.5/5
Strength: 1/5
Speed: 2/5
Stamina: 1/5
Chakra Control: 0.5/5
The stats on display looked identical to the stats in the Naruto Databooks. From what I could remember about the books, the lowest score someone could get in each category was 0.5 points.
And I had that in half my categories!
I glared at the screen. "How is this fair?" I asked, pissed that I was literally the weakest someone could be in four categories.
The screen didn't react to my words. I hadn't expected it to.
If there was one thing my premature death had taught me: it was that life wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that I died so young. Or that my soul, brain, or heart...whatever it was that made me me was dropped into the body of Sasuke Uchiha.
And it damn sure wasn't fair that the memories of Sasuke Uchiha's life before "The Swap" played like a movie in my head instead of actual memories.
I saw what was happening, but I didn't feel the associated feelings. I didn't feel the love Sasuke Uchiha had for his family, or the pain and trauma he probably felt after the Uchiha Massacre.
Which was a good thing, because I didn't think I was mentally strong enough to go through what the Sasuke Uchiha did and continue functioning.
The downside was that all of the old Sasuke's training also played like a movie. And just like you couldn't do a fighting move you saw an actor do in a movie, I couldn't do anything I saw the old Sasuke do.
I couldn't do any of the three academy jutsu...and you could forget about the Fireball jutsu!
"Status," I muttered, and the screen vanished.
I guess it could be worse.
I tried focusing my chakra into my eyes and smiled when I saw one-tomoe sharingan replaced the black eyes in the mirror.
Despite not having any ninja training whatsoever, I wasn't completely helpless. My new eyes were going to be what let me catch up to my peers and eventually surpass them.
I also had the advantage of future knowledge. Even just two ordinary things like Tree Walking and Walter Walking had been completely unknown to Sasuke before. He had still been an Academy student after all, and those were things that a Genin was supposed to learn from their Jonin-sensei.
The Academy! I thought as another of Sasuke's memories flooded my brain and I suddenly remembered what today was.
"Fuck!" I rushed back into Sasuke's room to get dressed.
Today wasn't just the day my life had changed forever. Today was the day Sasuke Uchiha was supposed to take his graduation test!
And I didn't know how to do any of the three Academy Jutsu!
What the hell was I going to do?
Sasuke Uchiha/Gamer Self-Insert!
This is a complete overhaul of a story I already had up!
Anyway, thanks for reading!