Chapter Names, Author's Notes

'Jutsu and Technique Names'

"Other Worldly Beings, Tailed Beasts, Monsters, Summons"

Locations, Titles

Important or Frequent Concepts, Group Names, Unique Places

"Thoughts"

"Dialogue"

Author's note: I will use Jutsu and Technique interchangeably, it's the same thing.

Chapter 1: Better Beginnings

So, here I am, running for my life with what's left of my team after failing that thrice damned mission; hoping that the emergency evac under heavy enemy fire goes through with minimum issues, and wanting nothing more than to just take a good long nap. My team and I make it to the rendezvous point just in the nick of time and get picked-up by the aircrew before we hightail it out of there like a bat out of hell. Then, not 5 minutes later, I felt like my body was just shot out of a cannon at terminal velocity, as weird as that sounds. Next thing I know, a large piece of metal stabs me in the chest just missing my heart - although my left lung could only wish to be so lucky. I look around frantically as I struggle through the pain and notice the plane I was on was basically an extra crispy meteor falling from the sky...only then do I realize that my team and I were shot down during our escape from the combat zone; a painful death fast approaching - I can see the ocean coming ever closer..."Well...I'm not surviving this one, that's for sure. Might as well take myself out before I go splat haha." I chuckled to myself morbidly for but a moment, and with that thought in mind, I grabbed my combat knife and stab myself in the head...

...

...

...

I look around and notice that my surroundings are a weird mixture of utter darkness and a sort of glowing grey dust all around me- or is it smoke? Maybe some type of mist? "Well, this seems awfully boring. And here I thought that death was just like falling into a dreamless sleep. I wonder if I'm just supposed to stand here and philosophize for the rest of eternity..." I say to myself out loud. Kind of weird considering my body doesn't seem to be all that solid so my vocal cords shouldn't work. "Meh, it is what it is I guess." I finish my monologue and begin walking towards what I believe to be an ethereal glowing shape. At first it looks like a sort of humanoid with what I can only guess is a large hole in its chest. "...Shit... I really hope you aren't a hollow" I mutter silently to myself.

"Welcome young warrior" a voice smooth as silk calls out to me. I focus on the figure and see the silhouette of a very beautiful, tall, and ethereal looking woman. I catch myself before I stare and respond to her.

"Hello, ma'am. Would you happen to be a guide of sorts? I seem to be rather lost" I ask hoping that her kind voice isn't just to lure me in and eat me. I already died once so I'd like to not repeat the experience.

"Yes, young one. I am the guide to all those who have passed on from the living world. You may call me Death, or Lady Death, if you so please." She responds with a smile, and I nod, smiling back.

"Well then, Lady Death..." I begin to speak. "Could you please tell how this works? I remember dying and the series of events that led to it. Does that mean I am not ready to pass on just yet? Or am I to be punished for the manner in which I died?" I ask. Not at all concerned about my death since it's pretty much a moot point right now.

"Of course, child. To begin with your final question, no, you shall not be punished. You would not have survived the fall, and it would have been a rather painful end. That you chose to spare yourself the suffering rather decisively speaks to a mental fortitude I do not often see in one so young." She replies in a silky-smooth voice that almost lures me to sleep. A warmth fills my chest as she steps closer and caresses my cheek, staring into my eyes as she continues.

"For your second question, all beings pass, their readiness in the matter matters little to me." She continues with a voice that blankets me in a feeling of warmth and safety. Her caresses have nothing to do with it I swear.

"Finally, for how this works. Well, that depends on the individual. Most people, the weak or undeserving, - she says, looking like she just bit on a particularly sour lemon - cease to exist all together. While others, special ones who have met certain criteria, are given the chance to make one desire in which how to spend their death, true. Like yourself in this instance." She pauses to see if I understand what she is telling me, and I nod with rapt attention. She comes closer and puts her forehead on mine. Rather awkwardly as she is about a whole two heads taller than I.

"Some people choose to go to 'heaven' a place that by all rights does not exist as a place where one goes upon death but is created for each individual based on what their vision of it is so that they can enjoy it for the rest of eternity. Others choose to live in a world of fantasy. While others may decide to become immortal and explore the multiverse hidden entirely from mortals. The list goes on, as you may imagine." She finishes, and I cannot help but feel a growing excitement in my chest for what I can wish for. As if to respond to that excitement, my smile comes in full force, and I feel my cheeks burn from the strain.

She looks at me for a moment and then smiles, the most beautiful smile I have ever witnessed in my short life, before she envelops me in a warm, loving, full body embrace that makes me want to forgo my previous wish and stay like that forever. But alas, I must not waste this chance. There is something I have always wanted to do and now that I have the opportunity, I shan't waste it.

After much deliberation and thought about how to word my one desire - all while still remaining in Lady Death's loving embrace - I speak my desire. "My Lady, - I say while looking up at her beautiful features - my desire, is to be able to live in and move to and from any fictional world of my choosing, to live the life of my favorite characters or simply create a life of my own. To manipulate any and all abilities or powers granted and gained in one life in the next. And to be able to meet you in all of these worlds and more, if only to feel your warm embrace should you allow it." I ask with a passion and seriousness I haven't shown outside of battle. Hoping that my desire for love and affection does not turn her away. I then separate from her embrace and place a kiss on her left hand where her ring finger would be.

I look back at her, and she smiles. At first kind and motherly, then hungry, almost predatorily - at this point I realize that Lady Death may or may not be one of them Yandere - before she gives me a deep kiss and says "Oh yes, my young warrior...Yes. I will grant you this desire. And you will also grant mine. For as long as your soul shall exist, you will love and cherish me, dedicate your life and achievements to me, and worship me above all others. You shall have my blessing to love whomever you so wish, but your number one shall forever be me." She finishes with a look of absolute possessiveness and carnal desire that I can't help but find incredibly arousing - Yup, definitely a Yandere -, before shoving her tongue all the way down my non corporeal, ethereal bodies throat - how that works I have not the foggiest. Before she takes me right then and there with a lust and passion that I have no words to describe. "Note to self: My Lady is one thirsty entity"

After what I can only say to be an undetermined amount of extremely passionate lovemaking with My Lady, she lets me go and says "We shall meet soon my young warrior. Until then..." She kisses me one final time and touches my head with her finger. It's then that I am finally able to see her true appearance. Long straight black hair with a touch of blue, smooth ashen skin with cracks like a 'Reanimation', a slender, almost bony frame. Perky breasts that fit in my hand perfectly, a bubbly heart shaped rear, and wide hips that look well in proportion with the rest of her frame. Mile long legs, with defined muscle, and skin giving way to bone right around her ankles. Large claws, storm blue eyes with black sclera, and nothing but bone beneath her nose, all the way down to the lower part of her yaw. With teeth more like a piranha than a woman's. I'm surprised by the change but don't think much of it and smile at her before I mouth "See you soon My Lady". Before everything goes dark.

Next thing I know, I feel like I'm in a cramped place where I can hardly move more than perhaps a few centimeters. It feels warm and sticky and slimy and "Oh my God I'm in a womb!" I come to a realization. I can't see shit and breathing feels weird as fuck. Yup, definitely in a womb or something. "Well, I can't really do anything so I may as well sleep until I'm born. I wonder what world I was sent to first..."

Sometime later: October 10th

I'll be honest, being a back seat driver during a situation like this makes me feel like a total ass. But I just can't help but notice all the stupid stuff mom and dad did wrong while fighting Kurama. Mom, I can understand, she literally just pushed me out of her and had Kurama ripped out of her, so I can forgive her not noticing that she had to tighten the chains when Kurama's first half was sealed, to compensate for his reduced frame and size. But dad... well, I guess being a first-time father would get anybody frazzled. Never mind having a lunatic try to kill your son - with unnecessary flair mind you - mere moments after he is born. Never mind having a 'Tailed Beast' rampaging around the village, would test anybody's nerves. But I still must insist that the way he handled Kurama's sealing was dumb. He nerfed him, and by extension me by splitting the guy in half. But anyways, I digress. Things could have probably been handled a little better.

It wasn't up until I was going to have the final half of Kurama sealed within me that I saw her. I honestly thought she would wait a few years before giving me a visit. "I wonder what- ah, so that's her idea. Already she's giving me a leg up..." Taking the place of the 'Death God' for the 'Reaper Death Seal', My Lady was making it so that the half of Kurama that was sealed with dad inside of the 'Death God's' stomach would slowly be re-assimilated into my own seal, eventually giving me full access to Kurama's chakra. At first, I was ecstatic that I might get a version of events where my parents are alive. But it seems that Kurama - lovable furry bastard that he is - had other plans concerning my family situation and getting a third 'Jinchuriki'.

In one last act of defiance, he struck out to kill me and, much like in the original series, my parents were both skewered like shish kebab. What's different here is that both of my parents did have enough energy - something I suspect had to do with My Lady taking the reins with the Sealing Technique - to tell the Old Man that they wanted me taken care of properly. That I should be seen as a hero, and that they were counting on me to defeat the 'Masked Man' that did this to the village, the man that ripped Kurama out of mom's seal - Something I distinctly remember not happening in the source material. After some teary promises and goodbyes, both of my parents used the 'Eight-Trigrams Seal' on top of my 'Reaper Death Seal' in an effort to fill me with their love so that I may be able to fight off Kurama's influence with their help. I'll be honest, if I could have, I would have cried and wailed more than I already was - this shit was depressing. Hearing everything that they said made me so happy, but at the same time so damn sad. Seeing parents have so much love and affection towards their child - me - was indescribable. My dad back in my old life loved me like a ton, but this just felt so much more raw and powerful. It makes me think that humans here experience emotions on an entirely different level than back in my previous life.

Then after some tears from the Hokage, mourning both his wife and my parents, he decided to take me to where my parents' house was- or what was left of it - and sealed everything he could find to give me in a scroll he later hid in the Hokage Office, behind my father's picture, which he titled, 'Uzumaki Naruto's Inheritance'. He also went and started freezing my parents' assets and putting the documents and forms away with the rest of my inheritance. "I don't know if this actually happened in the original, but my man here be hustlin' to get all my shit squared away. This man already in my 'Homies List' for sure."

Some years passed, and every day since that night I got to see the Old Man struggle to keep up with the paperwork and demands of being back in the job after being retired for a few years. It was funny seeing him curse at the paperwork and hear the ANBU bet on whether or not he would lose it and start torching it. But other than that, life as a baby was boring as all hell. The Old Man always made time to be with me though, and there was always at least two ANBU watching over me even while I was at the Hokage Office with the man not ten feet away from me. I don't know what really happened in the original, seeing as Kishi paid no mind to any details about how Naruto was raised in the slightest, but I was living with the Old Man at his place up until I was able to live on my own - which just so happened to be when I was little over four years old. The ANBU were also made to teach me how to read, write, and count when the Old Man saw me looking at a scroll and trying to read from it...I was three? Give or take.

Another thing that I know for a fact is different is that I was told about my parents. I wasn't given names, but I was told all about them. I was told about the Uzumaki Clan and told that once I started my training, I would be receiving my mother's scrolls to learn all of my family's techniques. I was told of my father's accomplishments before he was named Hokage and what led to it, since that would have been a big red neon sign that said, "Your Father was the Fourth Hokage!" Though, it seems it was mostly because I was pretty much a lover of history and had a good eye for detail, that the old man omitted certain things, which I can't really blame him for. Although, I do have the sneaking suspicion that he is leaving me quite the trail of breadcrumbs to follow. But I'll wait a few years to confirm that.

Some few days after I had turned four, I had decided to ask the Old Man if there was any way to accurately measure a person's Chakra Reserves. Something that I was always curious about. As it turns out, this world does have a way to measure a person's chakra capacity exactly - I swear this was not anywhere in the original material. After lots of begging and 'Puppy Dog Eyes Jutsu' he acquiesced if only to sate each other's curiosity.

The old man decided to measure his first to show me how to do it properly. And he had a lot of chakra. Not as much as he used to apparently, but he was still packin' some real heat. He told me to try it next, which took a few tries since I still didn't know how to actively use my chakra. It took about an hour for me to get the hang of doing so. I measured myself and got a relatively low number. Then, after a moment of silence, he asked me to try it again on a different machine since this first one might not be properly calibrated. So, I tried again and this time I got a slightly higher number. The screen on the device said: Chakra Points (CP) - 60. Which was 10 points higher from the previous machine's 50 CP.

I then compared it to the old man's who was at a whopping 3500 CP and thought that the amount that I had seemed about right. It seems, however, that the Old Man thought different, and got me to start doing the leaf balancing exercise to try and establish some Chakra Control so that I wouldn't have as much trouble when I started learning Jutsu at the academy as I would have otherwise. He also helped me figure out a proper training schedule that I could start with and change as needed.

After that had happened, I started working extensively to both control and expand my chakra reserves. One of the ways I did this besides the leaf balancing exercise, was learning how to properly meditate. While meditating I would try to feel out the flow of my chakra, then I would compress it and spin it in the direction in which it naturally flowed. This helped with increasing my reserves along with improving my understanding of my own chakra, thereby improving my control quite a bit as well. I also did the leaf balancing exercise with more than just one leaf. At first, I had trouble doing it with just the one, but after a few days of constant training, I was finally able to get it to stick for about fifteen minutes. At which point I would add another leaf until I could do the same amount of time with the additional leaves.

I also, interestingly enough, met Jiraiya about three months after I turned four; at around Christmas time. He got me my apartment - which is the same Naruto had in canon and is a lot nicer than one would expect - and gave me my wallet 'Gama-chan'. He then told me a bunch of stories about my parents and also gave me his first book to read, after I asked him if he knew why my parents named me after a ramen topping. - I knew the reason already, but I really wanted to read the book for myself and thought that this would be a clever way to get my hands on it. - This made him laugh and cry at the same time, which made me feel pretty sad. He then said that if I trained hard that maybe someday, I could learn from the toads like he and my father did. Which I honestly couldn't wait for.

Jiraiya didn't stay for too long, but he was here, and he did his best, and I was happy with that. Before leaving though, he told me that if I wanted to learn more about chakra and Shinobi Techniques before I went to the Ninja Academy, that I should head to the library to learn about the basics of chakra, as well as elementary Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu theory. Along with any other Shinobi skills that may interest me. And that was exactly what I did. I went to the library and just absorbed myself in reading all of the Shinobi subjects that I could get my hands on. I would later write down whatever I remembered about the information I had read, before re-reading the information and taking notes to study with after the fact.

Luckily for me, this is NOT like those Fics where the villagers have some sort of delusional vendetta against me. In fact, if anything their treatment of me seems rather tame compared to what I was expecting. I also had no issues going into shops and getting food and clothes at reasonable prices, which I count as a plus, but people still gave me a wide berth and rarely if ever looked at me. Thankfully, the Ichiraku Ramen Shop was still as friendly and welcoming as it was in the original. I loved it there. The food was great, and the company was even better.

It was during one of my walks that my musings led to my 'Jinchuriki' status and I decided it was time to see if I could somehow access the seal and speak with Kurama. So, after I had gotten home from my latest trip to the library, I marked my calendar for the next day to try and access the seal. I was already adept at meditation, so I thought it shouldn't be too hard. I was wrong on all accounts.

It took me two weeks to concentrate enough to get inside the seal. And I mean two weeks, with eight to twelve hours of constant meditation a day. I was apparently not as good at meditation as I thought.

It then took me another week with the same process, to actually go more than a few steps before coming back outside of the seal. Once that was accomplished, I steeled my nerves and walked over to where the cage should have been. It was still some type of sewer, although other than the aesthetics there really wasn't much else to it. I did notice that there was very little water on the floor, probably about enough to cover my toes. After a few minutes of walking, I saw him. He looked rather peaceful if I do say so myself. Made me wonder why that was, but I did not forget that Kurama was one nasty customer at this point.

Kurama glared at me and growled "Come closer." "Now why does that sound so familiar?", I think to myself. I do so and his claws bang against the cage bars. Ah, so that's why. It was the same in the anime. I promptly fell on my ass but managed to keep some dignity by looking right at him. "I want to eat and kill you. But this gate won't open. Bloody spell that seals..." Damn, this is terrifying. He just growled once more and continued, "What are you doing here" "Well, I... Uh..." I drew a blank. Probably should have thought this through a little more. Then I just decided to treat this like any first time greeting. "Um, my name is Naruto Uzumaki. What's your name Mr. Fox?" I was really hoping my cuteness would prevail here. But alas, I was wrong.

"I already know who you are, you worthless meat sack! What do you want?!" He said. "Well, uh... I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself. I was hoping we could be friends ya'know?" Ah yes, the verbal tick strikes again. "Hahaha" He chuckles humorously as if I had told him a joke. "Friends you say?" he then asks with his gravelly, menacing tone. "Fine then, open this gate and we can be friends." He continues, his eyes shining. "Um, wouldn't that kill me though?" I ask, seeing the trick for what it was. I may be a kid, but I'm not stupid ya'know? At this he growls out "That's the point you insect." and kicks me out of the seal.

Once I got my bearings I fell back to the floor and just lay there.

"I knew he'd be grumpy, but I was hoping it wouldn't be this much just yet." I sighed. Then I looked at the clock and decided it was time for a shower before going to bed. "Getting anywhere with this might take more time than I had wanted to admit..." I sighed again.