AN: Good Grief how long has it been since I logged into this site... 2014? Alright, let's skate right by that and get into the story... This was originally posted on AO3 and I have since decided to post it here too. Chapters will be released every week on Friday until caught up and then ~2 weeks between chapters, shooting for AO3 on Thurs then here on Friday. This story was inspired by several Self-Inserts here on , mostly Dreaming of Sunshine, and Light's Song over on me your comments, potential headcanons, and critiques cause I certainly need them.
Having spent years hopping from dimension to dimension upon your death(s) you're pleasantly surprised when something throws a wrench in your plans. In this life, you had somehow been reincarnated as the main protagonist Naruto Uzumaki, with a few minor changes. The biggest ones were that one you were female, and two you had inherited Kushina's red hair. At least in this life, you won't have to deal with much, if any dysphoria.
Your childhood was absolute crap, the civilians were either outright trying to kill you or raising their prices so high you still have no idea how you survived your early years before the academy. You didn't even get to choose what you would become in the future, you were just shunted off into the academy without a word. Most of your time in the academy went just as you assumed the original Naruto had, being thrown out for the tiniest thing and then being yelled at for not knowing anything. It was no surprise you took up pranking while being outside the classroom during school hours, this would end up helping you plan ahead of time alongside trap setting. The few times you tried to enter the village and academy libraries you were swiftly thrown out on your face before being yelled at to stay out.
At the tender age of 12, you were officially in canon, and with it came all the plot points and subplots you tried to avoid like a dumpster fire. The night of the graduation exam, you were lucky enough to not only punt Mizuki through a few trees, but also gain Iruka's headband and respect, learn how to use the fabled Shadow Clone Technique, and in turn, use it with your shurikens turning it into the Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique. Unfortunately, you were then placed onto the 'Legendary Team Seven' which made you want to puke. Sasuke was just as emo and full of himself as the anime and manga always implied and Sakura was nothing but a fangirl in your mind. Kakashi was a lazy pervert that you could barely stand and you wonder whether or not your parents ever tried to adopt him in this world.
You're unsurprised when this mess of a team is somehow able to pass the fabled bell test but you just chalk it up to the council on Kakashi's butt to pass 'The Last Uchiha' other wise you know he would have just failed you all for the severe lack of teamwork. After that you were put on D-Rank missions for several weeks, you had a decent time doing the 'chores' though you enjoyed the Tora missions the most, chasing down a small object and getting to hug and cuddle a supposedly evil cat was just icing on the cake. But eventually, the plot must move on and before you know it you're being shipped off to Wave Country with Tazuna in toe. Despite your best efforts, the mission went mostly as canon did, though you didn't lose control of the Kyuubi when Sasuke went down. You left Wave with a bridge to your name, The Great Uzumaki Bridge, and two graves overlooking the water.
Three weeks after your return to the village the village started to gain an influx of foreign Shinobi and you know at once that the Chunnin Exams are upon you. Despite your best efforts, you're thrown into the exam building's test room, you even try to fail the written test but you're foiled at every turn. The Forest of Death is aptly named and just as you expect Orochimaru attacks your team. You thankfully don't get a seal on top of your seal, mostly because you refuse to get close to the snake, but Sasuke still ends up 'cursed'. During the primary, you're thrown up against Kiba who you thankfully beat to a pulp without the need of a fart. The month between this and the exam is spent training your tail off, and you are able to gain a summoning contract using the reversal summoning technique. To your great joy, you end up with a contract with the Big Cat Summoning Group, lions tigers, and leopards oh my!
You learn how to commune with the Kyuubi and come to a strained understanding that you plan on strengthening in the future. This all helps when you face off against Neji and win by the skin of your teeth. The invasion happens and you face off with Gaara and win with the help of the lion pride leader. Not long after the mass funeral Jiraiya pulls you aside and pulls you along to help find Tsunade for the Hokage position. The Akatsuki make a grab for you and it ends just as canon did, with Sasuke injured and the hotel thoroughly ruined beyond repair. You spend three days on the road attempting the Rasengan and doing your best not to fall into the clone trick right off the bat.
You try your best to deal with your perverted godfather though he never tells you the relationship the entire time you're traveling with him. To your surprise, you slightly enjoy the premise of the Ichi Ichi series but the spelling errors and the fact that the 'research' was done via peeping almost make you want to throw the book, and its writer, out the window or into a fire. You calm yourself to the best of your abilities and continue reading the books. After centuries of past lives, a 'new' book series to read is enough to give it at least one read-through. The old man is still slightly salty about you signing the big cat contract and not the toad one but you don't pay him much heed.
Your first meeting with Tsunade on the other hand almost makes you want to die. First off you're a complete and utter 'useless lesbian' and the woman looks like she's barely into her late twenties at the most. Second, her chest is the largest you have ever seen, and you can't believe that your eyes are drawn to it like a moth to a flame considering that you usually go for women with small to medium breasts. And finally, she could kill you and you'd probably thank her for it. Her niece/apprentice Shizune treats you like a little sister/cousin and for once you seem to have a decent female role model in your life.
Due to your lack of wanting to be Hokage, it takes a bit of time, effort, and a beatdown on Orochimaru and Kabuto, but you're able to convince her to return to the village. Not long after your return and her inauguration you and your 'team' are sent out on a few missions that ultimately result in Sauske deflecting from the village. You're tempted to just let him leave but an order is an order in this military village and you rather not get arrested and or executed for treason.
During the VotE battle, you don't bother to give it your all, though you do try and delay him to the best of your abilities. You never go beyond claws, red eyes, and thickened whisker marks but you also don't get a snapped back/spine or a chidori through your chest so you count that as a win in your books. Not long after you're booted out of the village to train with the super pervert, and you have to deal with the consequences of living a life and not watching a TV show and not getting a time skip.
During the trip you're able to come to much better agreement with the Kyuubi, not enough to get their name but enough to access four tails worth of their power, any more and you have to deal with the 'burns' that result from the chakra. While scouting around the world you come across another summoning scroll, this one unmarked, and surprisingly no name on the thing. You take the time to converse with the big three cat prides, and they eventually allow you to sign the contract stating that their contract with you is the priority here, and as long as any future contracts acknowledge this fact they will have no problems moving forward.
To your surprise and delight the unsigned contract is for rodents. To many this may seem like a downside, but to you next to cats, mice, squirrels, and chipmunks were some of your favorite animals. And the rodent family includes the porcupine, jerboa, and beaver, giving you more options than just predatory animals. From then on you almost always have either a mouse, squirrel, or chipmunk somewhere on your body. From the cats, you learn stealth and how to pounce on your prey, while from the rodents you learn how to scavenge from the lands and how to notice others around you.
Jiraiya thankfully helps you acquire old scrolls on taijutsu and ninjutsu while teaching you the incredibly useful and difficult art of fuinjutsu, or the art of sealing. By the time the trip is over with you've shot up over half a foot after two and a half years of decent regular meals and you don't think you're quite done growing just yet. Returning to the village you go see Tsunade right off the bat. There you see your old 'team' whom you don't acknowledge which catches most of their attention. Unfortunately, you're forced to retake the bell test with only Sakura this time around. The two of you barely pull off a win mostly due to your lack of trust in the other woman.
Hours later you're racing off to rescue Gaara, which is mostly a success. Once you confirm the Akatsuki are on the hunt you meditate and commune with the fox once more, this time with a bit of desperation in your tone. Thankfully they seem to be understanding of the situation you find yourselves in and boost your limit from four to six. From there it's a non-stop roll with the punches dealing with Orochimaru, new teammates you still can't handle, and an attack led by Hidan and Kakuzu. You even learn about your elemental alignment, fire, and earth with a yin release leaning which mixes well with the yang half of the Kyuubi sealed within you.
Days later you see Jiraiya for the last time as he drops off a few scrolls for you before heading off on his last mission. Upon learning of his death, you leave a message for the village before heading to the summoning plane where you learn the ancient arts of the cats and rodents. During the downtime, you look through the scrolls he had left you where you find a lone picture of him, and your parents, your mother being visibly pregnant. You flip the picture around and find a date about a week before your birth alongside your parents' names, Jiraiya's name next to the word godfather, and then scrawled across the back is the name Naruto Namikaze-Uzumaki. When you look at your full name for the first time and realize the entire time you have lived this life you can say with certainty that you have never felt any connection with the name. You close your eyes and take a deep breath before stating aloud to the empty air, " Naruto Namikaze-Uzumaki maybe my birth name, but as of today, it is now my dead name. Samantha was the original name I was given eons ago, and today I retake the name and make it my own. Samantha Nyx of the Uzumaki clan is the name I have chosen for myself, Minato, Kushina. I can only hope you can accept my actions, because whether or not you approve matters not to me."
You never return to the village hidden in the leaves; instead, you take up hit-and-run tactics against your godfather's killer and eventually manage to widdle him down enough that you're able to strike a killing blow, you manage to walk away with only one new scar, a mark mere millimeters underneath your left eye. You learn about the declaration of the four shinobi war as you scour the land of water for any sign of the remains of the village hidden in whirlpools. Between the war and the excavation of your mother's birth village your mental health takes a toll on your physical health. Your depression is rough but between your furry companions, you're able to remain standing no matter the opponent. During this time you're fully able to connect with the Kyuubi enough to not only gain access to all nine tails of their power but also receive their name, Kuruma.
The war officially ends a month later, in March your original birth month. You leave your old life behind and fully commit to your new life in the ruins of your mother's old life. Which somehow ends up being the best thing to ever happen to you. You spend a month excavating long entombed corpses and cremating them while sealing away anything and everything to do with the Uzumaki clan. During that lone month, you find another summoning scroll in the decrepit remains of the clan head's home, the home your mother once grew up in, the home your grandparents had lived in until they died in the massacre. According to Kuruma the scroll you hold is the ancient kitsune, or fox, contract. The Uzumakis had had an interesting connection with foxes, long before Mito was made into the first jinchūriki for the fox.
You sign the contract and you're surprised by how many names are written within the rolls of the scroll. Your first meeting with the foxes is honestly heartwarming, almost every fox there over the age of thirty seems to have a story or something about your clan either individually or as a whole. It isn't long before you always have a summon, or two, with you. Some days you have a panther watching from above as you shift rubble away ready to step in case of the rubble falling on top of you at a moment's notice. On other days you have a mischief of mice helping you figure out whether or not it's worth excavating a particular area or home. At night you have a skulk of foxes around you near your campfire as they weave story upon story of your ancestors.
Within two months you have mostly cleared out most if not all the rubble within the village's borders. The cleared rubble has found either a temporary or permanent home within a scroll aptly labeled rubble, stone, and dirt. Mostly due to some help from your shadow clones, but considering the massive size of the village, two months seems like a much more compact time frame. During the massive cleanup, you find several things that connect the dots so to speak. Throughout the village, you find several decrepit corpses with either a hidden rock headband, hidden mist, or hidden cloud headbands. These you seal within a scroll before kicking it off the cliff and into the surrounding waters. When you go back to what you assume to be your ancestral home you're able to dig up an old leather-bound journal that is held in place by two skeletal arms still attached to the corpse.
Handling the book with care you slowly flick through the journal hoping to find some mention of who it once belonged to, and potentially the name of the skeleton that was holding it. It takes some time but you eventually come across the name of your birth mother and then a masculine name. It finally clicks in your head that you're potentially holding the journal of your maternal grandmother. You handle what little remains of her corpse carefully and seal it into its own little scroll. Later that night you slowly and carefully turn the brittle pages and try to read the scrawled words with small success.
The next day, you finally decide to excavate the remains of the central tower, the tower you assume to be your grandfather's place of work but also his potential grave. It takes a good few hours even with the help of your clones but eventually, you're able to find what little remains of your grandfather there are. Heck, the only reason why you know the decrepit bones are his is due to the family heirloom katana being strapped to the remains of the baldric slung over his shoulder. You carefully detach the belt keeping the baldric in place until you can safely maneuver your grandfather's corpse out of it before sealing him next to your grandmother. Detaching the sheath from the baldric you make a mental note to give it a thorough wash before strapping it to yourself. Pulling the blade from the sheath itself you're momentarily stunned by the gorgeous sight of the Damascus steel patterning up and down the blade. Shaking yourself out of a stupor you lightly run your thumb along the blade and frown slightly at the dull edge, you don't think several decades hidden beneath stone and dirt, locked within its sheath would cause it to go dull but you have no other reason why the blade would be in such a state.
Later that evening around the campfire you have the foxes that once partnered with your great-grandparents and listen to stories about your grandparents. Like most families in the Elemental Nations, your grandparents were actually third cousins which is quite normal here, and the marriage was arranged by your grandfather's parents. By this point having an intertwined family tree is just another fact of life for this lifetime, you're just slightly thankful for the fact that your parents never had the chance to arrange a marriage for you in the first place, arranged marriages usually needed the affectees to be at least a year old just to verify not only they had a chance to survive to adulthood, also to ensure that the proper inheritance tests could be done on the child, no one wanted to arrange a marriage only to find out after the fact that one child was actually the product of an affair and did not possess the required bloodline.
As you listen to the soothing voices of the foxes around you, you slowly start to fixate on the motions of running your whetstone along the bevel edge of the family sword. The motions are slow, steady, and precise. Even though you have never sharpened a live blade like this in this life, sharpening blades is a skill that still holds significance in your lives from the very beginning as you once walked the road to becoming a chef. You make sure to check the blade after a few passes on each side to ensure you're not oversharpening the blade and once you believe you have a decent edge you toss up the leftover core of an apple and without much difficulty cleave the core in two. With a small smile, you sheath the sword and briefly wonder how you're going to carry it while you try to sanitize the baldric. But for now, you'll just tuck it between the straps of your backpack and back while you move about.
The next morning you awaken to find only one kitsune beside you, their name being Senna, with the meaning deep red, and apple tree. Senna was originally meant to work alongside your mother when she was supposed to sign the kitsune summoning contract, but due to being Kuruma's jinchūriki and the fall of Uzu that never happened, instead when you signed the scroll and the chance to partner with their previous intended partner's child, well Senna couldn't hop on the offer fast enough. You carefully make enough breakfast for the two of you, Senna helpfully providing the corpse of a small animal you try not to look too closely at, you might be an omnivore but you have never felt comfortable around the fresh corpses of animals. Behind you, you can faintly hear the cooing of a bird of some sort, you don't have enough knowledge of birds to narrow down the call but can tell that the bird is not a hatchling or the like. You and Senna don't pay the bird much attention having learned long ago that as long as you don't mess with them they won't mess with you, which unfortunately ends up being your downfall.
You pack away what little remains of breakfast into a reusable container before sealing it away and placing the scroll into your bag. You take out your grandmother's journal, intent on reading more about the last few days of this village, and place it beside you before messing with the contents of your bag. It takes a minute to get everything situated again and reach down to pick the journal back up. Instead, your hand meets dirt and you freeze and slowly look down hoping that you had just placed the book near your hand and not it being missing. Your face pales slightly at the sight of no book to be found. You spin around with one hand still clenching your bag as you scan the clearing you are in just outside your shelter. Your eyes quickly dart from tree to tree just in time to catch the slightest glint of the color of the journal off in the distance.
Your mouth drops open in pure shock as you watch a small little owl make off with a giant sack filled with what appears to be junk. Just when you thought your life could not get any weirder it gets worse… you're starting to wonder which god you pissed off in a past life or which one cursed with the whole "May you live in interesting times" schick. You swing your bag around to comfortably carry it and point Senna in the direction the owl just took off in. As the two of you go after it you shift the family's sword into a more practical position. Surprisingly this owl is much craftier than you originally thought, both you and Senna have a hard time tracking it through the woods, there is not a hint of a scent of owl to be found, and if it weren't for the occasional flash of the burlap sack the animal is carrying you would have lost it before you even entered the forest.
The owl eventually leads the two of you to what appears to be a Torii gate in the middle of nowhere. At least it would be a Torii Gate if it weren't for two things, one, the traditional reddish orangish color has been replaced with an off-brown color with a yellow eye smack dab in the middle of the top rung of the gate, and the second reason is that the middle, the part where one would walk through does not show the other side of the forest, instead a weird swirl of brown, yellow, and green 'swim' around the gate. The owl quickly flies through the gate and you and Senna barely exchange a glance before the two of you throw yourselves through the gate. You faintly wonder whether or not the owl was a messenger for the gods before you feel a tugging in your gut as you're whisked away to parts unknown.
Little did you know this was the start of a new life.