Hey guys, Luth here. Just wanted to try writing stories for once, instead of reading them. Hope you enjoy.
Chapter 1: Waking in a Familiar World
Trent leaned back in his plush office chair, letting out a contented sigh. Life was good. He had finally made it. The company he had poured his blood, sweat, and tears into was flourishing. His name commanded respect in the industry, and his bank account reflected his success. Being the majority stakeholder in his own company meant he could indulge in the small luxuries of life - like taking a midday nap without fearing the consequences. After all, who could fire the boss?
His eyelids grew heavy, and the steady hum of the air conditioning lulled him into a deep sleep. But when he next opened his eyes, something was wrong. Very wrong.
He wasn't in his office anymore.
The smell hit him first - a mixture of aged wood and something faintly metallic, like old ink. He sat up abruptly, blinking in confusion. The room around him was completely foreign. Rows of wooden desks, each scarred with deep grooves and etchings from years of use, lined the room. Sunlight streamed in through small, square windows, casting soft shadows on the polished wooden floor. The walls were adorned with dusty old scrolls and faded posters, the kind that seemed to belong to another era entirely.
Where the hell was he?
His heart began to race as he looked around, his mind struggling to make sense of his surroundings. The room was old-fashioned, almost rustic, with an atmosphere that was both nostalgic and unsettling. Then, the door at the back of the room swung open, and children began to file in, their chatter filling the air with a buzzing energy. Trent watched them, his confusion deepening with every passing second. There was something eerily familiar about these kids, though he couldn't immediately place it.
He rubbed his eyes, hoping to shake off whatever dream or hallucination this was, but when he looked again, the scene remained stubbornly unchanged. The children continued to fill the desks, their conversations lively and unrestrained. Some of them had faces he swore he'd seen before, but he couldn't quite pin down where. And then, as if on cue, the door at the front of the classroom burst open.
An adult entered, dragging a young boy by the ear. Trent's breath caught in his throat. The man was wearing a green flak jacket, a familiar scowl etched into his face, and the boy - there was no mistaking that messy blonde hair. It was him. The boy who could only be…
"Oh shit," Trent muttered under his breath, the realization hitting him like a freight train. "What the fuck?"
His mind reeled as the man, Iruka, his mind supplied almost automatically, dragged the boy to the front of the class. The boy, Naruto, was pouting, rubbing his sore ear while the rest of the class erupted into snickers and laughter. Iruka began scolding him, something about how how proper shinobi should act. It was a scene Trent had seen before, but not in real life. This was straight out of an anime he had watched religiously in his younger days.
He was in the Naruto world.
Trent squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the inside of his arm hard. The sharp pain made him wince, but when he opened his eyes again, nothing had changed. He was still there, still sitting in this impossibly familiar classroom, surrounded by these impossibly familiar children.
"How the hell…?" he whispered to himself. He had made it big in the real world - he had a life, a company, money. People didn't just get isekaied into another world when they were finally on top. That was supposed to be the fate of miserable souls looking for an escape, not someone like him. What kind of cosmic joke was this?
He forced himself to look around the room, taking in the faces of the children now seated at their desks. His eyes scanned over them, and as they did, names started coming back to him, one by one. There was Shikamaru, slouching in his seat with that perpetual bored expression. Ino, with her blonde ponytail and haughty posture. Chouji, munching on a bag of chips, oblivious to everything around him. More and more faces became recognisable, but not all of them. There were children here that he didn't recognize - faces that were unfamiliar, kids who, in the canon of the anime, had likely never made it to the ranks of shinobi.
His gaze shifted back to the front of the room, where Iruka was still berating Naruto, who seemed more annoyed than repentant. The boy had painted the faces of the Hokage on the monument in bright, garish colours - another prank in a long line of misdemeanors that would one day be recounted in his legend. Some of the kids were still laughing, while others looked exasperated, clearly used to this kind of spectacle.
But it was the kids themselves that unsettled him the most. They didn't look like the characters he knew from the anime. They were younger - much younger, their features softer, their voices higher. He wasn't seeing the almost-teenagers who would soon embark on dangerous missions and battle enemies far beyond their years. These were just kids.
His head was spinning with the impossible reality of his situation. He knew these characters, these faces, these names, but they were all too young. His stomach churned with the anxiety of it all, the sinking realization that he wasn't just in some fantasy, but a time before the events he knew so well even began.
He needed to know more, to understand where exactly he was in the timeline. But how? He turned his head slowly to the girl sitting next to him. She was focused on the front of the room, her hands folded neatly on her desk. She had a calm, composed look, her black hair cut into a short, bob style. For a moment, he wondered how best to approach her, how to get the information he needed without arousing suspicion. But before he could say anything, the girl turned to him, as if sensing his gaze.
"Yes, Ma-kun?" she asked, her voice soft and polite.
He blinked. The name struck a chord within him, a memory that hadn't been there a moment ago. His name… or rather, the name of the body he was now inhabiting. "Ma-kun," she had called him. He could feel it now - Wataru Masayuki. That was his name. No, that was the name of the boy whose life he had suddenly taken over.
Or was it?
A flood of memories rushed through his mind - images of a life he didn't live, experiences that weren't his, yet felt so real. Wataru Masayuki, a ten-year-old academy student. He was well-liked, decent at his studies, with no particular talent for ninjutsu but a strong sense of determination. Was this his life now? Had he simply taken over this boy's existence, or was this always who he was, and the memories of Trent were just a dream? The thought made his chest tighten with a sense of guilt. Had he wiped out another soul just by existing here?
The weight of it all pressed down on him, but he couldn't afford to dwell on it now. There were too many questions, and too few answers.
He had wanted to ask Kira - he now knew her name, somehow - how old they were, but the answer came to him unbidden. They were ten years old. Two years before the events of the anime would begin. Two years before everything would change.
"Damn," he muttered under his breath, slumping back in his seat. His mind was racing, a thousand thoughts clamouring for attention. Two years. That was all the time he had to figure out how to survive in this world, to prepare for the chaos that was coming.
This was going to be a drag.