against the tide - chapter 1
-Full Summary-
"I'm not your ally." There's an impenetrable smile playing across his face and the crescent moon in his eye glimmers with unfathomable knowledge.
This man, who rose from ash, who grew like a fire ablaze, who turned the current against the whole shinobi world, seemingly without a single strand of hair out of place-
Not a single soul could've guessed that the infamous 'God of Medicine' had always had an unfair advantage on his side.
Reincarnation, or better said: transmigration into his lifelong manga obsession.
(or, a doctor with a side note of being a weeb would absolutely obliterate a world grounded upon multiple plot holes… even if he was born into Uzushio, weeks before their demolition.)
A/N:
- Requested self insert ! more like OC insert tbh into pre-2nd Shinobi War Uzushio, Narutoverse if that wasn't clear already hahahah
- OC has canon knowledge and was a doctor (not sure what specialisation yet ..); however, I'm not a doctor so while I'll do my share of research, I have as much legitimacy as the directors of Grey's Anatomy !
- OC is also gay as hell so gtfo if ur a homophobe or not looking for that :)
- He will also have questionable morals and will get pretty powerful ! so don't come at me :)
- Not beta read so I hope there aren't many mistakes ..
Hope you enjoy :D
'Yes,' He supposed, some time between the liminality of death and life. 'I guess I am panicking.'
If he had a heart which could still thud, it would've beaten as loudly as the rattling of those guns. If he had a gut, he'd imagine it would twist in nausea.
One moment, he had a cocktail in his hand, tossing an easy smile to the dasher besides him as music blasted in the background; the next moment, the crisp popping of gunshots overshadowed the heavy beats of the soundtrack. Then there were screams.
Then, there was death.
Death was not unfamiliar to him. He'd watched its claws dig into the nectar of unfinished dreams. He'd experienced how its touch devastates.
He'd chased it away- dedicated years to learn how to do so, armed with surgical tools in the quiet battlefield of the operating room.
He was not unfamiliar with death, yet after dancing elusively beside it for all that time, when he himself was finally seized by its grasp, it felt like nothing he could describe.
Nor could he capture in words, his awakening.
"Natsuo," A warm voice, watery with happy tears. "Uzumaki Natsuo. I'm so happy you're well."
It's instinctual, by now, to observe his surroundings and analyse situations with a so-called psychopathic calmness. That's what he'd spent an extra decade in school to do.
Yet the information he gathered over the disjoint between his racing mind and his- his body, rocked by his presumed father whom he'd been passed to, was simply impossible.
Reincarnation.
Well, although he was an atheist, he wasn't completely dismissive of other religions- What was truly impossible was the awareness he currently possessed.
That was impossible.
From his blurry vision to his lack of motor control, to the size of his surroundings-
He was clearly a child. An infant.
He should be an 'it'. He should be merely a clump of flesh, not yet cognisant, not yet holding an identity. The retention of memories should be neurologically inexplicable, in the first place. Although he couldn't recall much, it was returning, small fragment by small fragment- His past life.
Furthermore, he's assumably newborn. How could he see colours? Even though so much was blurry, how could he see clearly enough to pin down the expression of joy in his father's face?
Had he reincarnated to some eras following his death? How long would it have been for humans to evolve to this state?
Or perhaps he was a rare anomaly? Although he hadn't heard of this before…
Was he a human experiment? That was possible, considering there's a near-certainty he's in the future. Gene editing provides a half-hearted explanation of his mother's hair as well.
Perhaps this was all a hallucination.
…There's no way that shade of red exists on a person, unless his mother had hair genes of steel to be able to dye what looked like waist length hair completely in vivid, firetruck red. Why was her hair down like that anyway during this procedure?
"Ah, he's gone silent!" A younger voice cried- It was the next person he'd been passed to. "Does he not like me?"
"What do you mean? He stopped fussing as soon as you hold him- You're a miracle worker, Kushina-chan."
'Fussing,' He thought with a mild sort of amusement. He had just been taking calm looks around, but he supposed everything he did now would be filtered and seen as the actions of an infant.
And this was… Japanese. He was in Japan. And seeing as how his prior knowledge aided him, he couldn't be too far into the future: language changed drastically over time after all.
(Alright, being a weeb gave him a head start in something at least.)
"I am?!" This Kushina squealed. Funny how these coincidences built up. Didn't they call him 'Uzumaki' as well? It reminded him of something… "Naw, that can't be it. I've held a lotta kids in my life, but they're all such nuisances. Maybe it's just that Natsuo-chan and I are destined besties, dattebane!"
'Natsuo…' Did it mean 'summer' or something? He played the name in his head. He supposed he'll need to become accustomed to it… Though his last name was fuzzy in his head. He couldn't quite grasp what should be most obvious to him…
"Kushina-chan, weren't you leaving in a few weeks?"
Silence. Then-
"Oba-chan, you so can't read a room, dattebane!"
'Wait, that verbal tic-'
The newborn then remembered the Naruto series before he remembered his own name.
(Priorities… he supposed.)
There's a buzz in the air, but not the pleasant kind.
His mother sings lullabies quietly and his father looks down at him with a soft sadness.
They whisper 'I love you, I love you, I love you…'
It's later when he realises that the first thing he heard- "I'm so happy you're well." was something more than the typical concerns.
"Do you understand what I'm saying, child?" Mito's hands are frail but somehow seem unendingly grounding around him. She emanates a majestic sort of power, yet her skin was dull and life was fading from her eyes.
Natsuo could admit to terror, even though this was a dying woman.
"Peculiar eyes always came with power. An ability. Nothing like yours has ever been seen before." Her words are careful. Her tone is soft.
She was talking to an infant in an empty room, but her eyes met his solidly.
"Your mother wasn't expecting a child. She ate something off, in desperation, when she was younger… in the First Shinobi War. It was out of necessity, but it brought her even closer to death. The Uzumaki have respectable vitality, yet your mother remained in a tentative condition because of that."
He was essentially a miracle case: something that had a higher chance of failing than coming to fruition. He supposed this was one of the miraculous universes.
'The isekai business is starting to take shape. Although into the Narutoverse… I suppose it isn't the worst.' Natsuo mused, although a little sick to his stomach.
While the Narutoverse was workable, he hadn't been born into a friendly era. Child soldiers, human experiments, normalised torture and murder, moral degradation… That was present in the confines of canon.
It could only be worse in a past era.
Besides, Natsuo could imagine what the 'something off' referred to. Cannibalism wasn't uncommon during dire times…
However, this sickness and genetically superhuman vitality was all a science unknown to him. Natsuo could theorise his mother had eaten a literal alien god's corpse and its crazy chakra had been too much… or it was something entirely different. He was a doctor. He didn't assume, but he considered the possibilities.
Mito adjusted him so he was upright, facing a long mirror where he was confronted with his appearance once again. It was something also unknown to him.
Hair too red to be auburn, yet too muted to be crimson like his mother's. A clear blue eye that was too saturated and almost greenish in hue to be regular of his last world.
And that's where the problem comes in. Only one of his eyes are like that. The other one is a deep blue, with a crescent moon, slightly luminescent in an eerie alien azure. Not a human eye.
Dojutsu. …But from a god. (His memory strains and stretches.)
It brimmed with a dangerous, untapped power. It was a force that felt akin to the pull of death, like some otherworldly universe was at the tip of his fingers.
"That fox as well. He said something strange about you." Mito readjusted him and his gaze returned to her and her sallow visage. She didn't elaborate, and instead murmured: "…I wonder what I'm doing, talking to a babe. You merely are just one, after all. It must be my old age getting to me."
She stared and stared. Her gaze was like a veil, suffocating or comforting. It was intense.
"Uzumaki Natsuo, I do hope you live well."
And that was that.
'What did the Kyuubi- Kurama say?' Natsuo wondered with irritation and itching curiosity. Instead of an answer, he got another challengingly ambiguous line.
Did she hope he'd survive, or that he'd live to be a good person, uncorrupted by evil?
He felt his mind, which should still be undeveloped, strain under the stress and he felt his breaths quicken.
'Be damned, this body.' He cursed at himself with mild annoyance. Outwardly, his cries had already began to shrill and Mito patted him, looking a tad flustered.
'That's what I thought, you hag.' Natsuo bitterly thought. 'Now tell me what Kurama said!'
She didn't. His parents rushed in and swathed him in their warmth and unceasing love again. Kushina accused Mito of being mean and somewhat haughtily declared her superior favourability with him.
Uzumaki Mito had died the next day. The day after, there was a grand funeral. And Kushina was set to leave, immediately after.
"You're my favourite." Kushina whispered to him, eyes glittering. She always said that.
Natsuo gave her a considering look. There wasn't much merit in her saying such things: it didn't make him more well-behaved, nor increase his favour towards her. Not that he was misbehaving, nor that he didn't like her.
Kushina was actually pleasant company despite her tendency to raise her voice. She was… animated. She was reckless. She trusted too easily for someone in her position.
(Jinchuuriki.)
She told him secrets, but they were secrets he knew already. She told him he was trustworthy.
(Not because he was actually trustworthy. It was because she thought he was a baby. When he was not.)
"You're too cute, dattebane." She gushed and squished his head against her cheek. "You and your shyness-"
…It wasn't shyness. It was a choice of remaining silent.
He exercised his voice… just not in front of people because he had a precise way of doing it that would probably come off a bit strange. Natsuo was pretty sure his parents already picked up on it though.
"I'll miss you so much, Natsu-chan."
There's too much indignity in attempting speech, so he just stared at her widely and gripped her sleeve. Kushina squealed and made a pitiful expression.
Natsuo did like her. And he'll miss her as well.
So, he decided the embarrassment was worth it as he butchered her name- "Goo-ji-na."
She covered his ears then shrieked before the embarrassment could hit Natsuo like a freight train.
"Say it again!"
"Goo?" Fuck, now that he talked, it was like the gates were unlocked. He clamped his mouth shut.
"Awww, did you just say 'goo'? You did, didn't you, dattebane?! I'm engraving that in my memory now!" She prodded at his face with a frankly cringeworthy expression on her face. "Aww, look at you, squishing your tiny, wittle lips together. You shy? You shy, hmmmm? Too cute, dattebane! Ah! I'm dying!"
He can't believe he (internally) admitted to liking her and missing her. Uzumaki Kushina was… a wild person, to say the least.
But still, he's a little glad: she would be able to leave this place which quickly fell into hell.
Natsuo learns the colour of his father's blood before he learns to walk without stumbling.
("I love you." His father had said, tenderly- so tenderly. It only made sense that his heart would beat heavily with a smothering grief. He shed tears, he cried- His mother muffled them, holding his head against her chest.)
He is roughly seven months old when the unacknowledged tension in the air, which had closed windows and shortened curfews, exploded like a tornado peeling off the roof of their house.
("I hope you grow old and strong and happy. I love you, son." His father had said words that one would say before parting with a loved one. He had always expected a sudden death. His father hadn't had the time to bid his mother nor him goodbye.)
He could hear the palpitations of his mother's heart as she pressed him almost painfully tight against her chest. Her breath was choppy as she drove the kunai into the half-dead intruder, presumably finishing what his father hadn't.
His mother stepped back a bit and she stiffened at the wet sound of his father's blood against her sandals. His body laid there, prone and unmoving. It felt surreal.
(Gentle, rough hands. The tearful smiles. His father. His dad. Natsuo hadn't yet exchanged proper words with him. He'd relented to babbling a bit with his parents' coaxing and their joy had been radiant.)
It was at this time when he hated how the mechanical parts of his mind could infer each injury from the sounds alone. (His mother hadn't let him watch the slaughter, but his brain supplied the image.)
The dying moans were not unfamiliar, but the death of people he knew for months- the only months he knew of this world-
Natsuo could not grasp the way he should react.
His head pounded and his tears stained his mother's clothes. His chest heaved with muted sobs.
There was a dull thud as another kunai dug into the intruder. The room was dead silent. Conflict cried on in the background. There was more to be fought. More to survive.
It was this kind of world where his mother didn't even have the time to cry for her husband, and instead had to prioritise the death of their enemy- This kind of world which Natsuo had been reborn in.
His mother hushed him and rocked him as she staggered on shaky legs. She was but a civilian. Only she was one who had survived the First Shinobi War, and now had to endure an incoming Second.
And he-
Uzumaki Natsuo does not learn how to push down his emotions and maximise efficiency. He'd learnt that ages ago.
It was like an on and off button. It was doctor, then person.
And with his father dead, his mother on the verge of, and his people dying around him, he could only do that:
-Switch that flip.