Prologue - A loser in two worlds!
Sakumo walked behind Shohei, the same as he did every day to school. At least for the last two months, this had been the routine. His friend did not look back once as he jabbered away to his new girlfriend, Mai.
At least she graduates next year, Sakumo thought as he kicked a rock on the sidewalk. It skittered along for a few feet when he failed to connect fully.
Shohei and Sakumo had been inseparable since elementary school. They had become friends due to proximity—as they had grown up next door to each other. Shohei's parents and Sakumo's guardian made sure they did all the same activities. Soccer, baseball, even martial arts, until everyone realized Sakumo was terrible at any coordinated activity.
Shohei had excelled at everything.
That continued into high school. Shohei was on just about every sports team, while Sakumo just...existed. He had decent grades but wasn't anywhere near the top of his class. He had some friends, mostly people who would say "Happy Birthday" but nothing more. The entire cheerleading team had baked a cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to Shohei.
Despite his popularity, Shohei stuck around as Sakumo's friend. He brought him to parties, where Sakumo sat in the corner. He made him go to the homecoming dance, where Sakumo sat in the corner. They played video games together and shot hoops at Shohei's house.
During dinner, Sakumo tried to be invisible while Shohei's parents talked to his sister and Shohei about their days.
Sakumo's real parents had disappeared years ago. No letter. No "going out for milk." Just gone. So Sakumo ended up spending a lot of time at Shoehei's'. His parents treated him like another son. Shohei's sister was a year older than them, a senior, and the unrequited love of Sakumo's life. They had all played together when they were younger, but Sakumo knew he didn't exist in her orbit anymore.
Sakumo stood back as the trio approached Miss Dodd's class, letting Shohei get a minute of privacy before he had to go to his own homeroom while Mai and Sakumo sat through Combined Science.
Sakumo hated Combined Science. It should have been test tubes, jets of gas, and sparks flying all over the place, like he'd heard about from Shohei's sister. What he got was a new teacher and an hour propped on a stool watching Miss Dodds write on a blackboard. You had to write everything down even though the photocopier was invented forty years earlier.
It was only the first lesson, but Sakumo was still sleepy because he'd been up late playing Sparking Zero the night before.
Mai sat next to him. Like Shohei, all the teachers thought Mai was fantastic: always volunteering for stuff, neat uniform, glossed nails. She did all her diagrams with three different colored pens and covered her exercise books in wrapping paper so they looked extra smart. But when her boyfriend and the teachers weren't looking Mai was a total cow. Sakumo hated her. She was always winding him up about his foster mom being fat:
"Sakumo's mom is so fat, they have to grease the bathtub or she gets stuck in it."
Mai's bitchy friends laughed, same as always.
Sakumo's foster mom was huge. She had to order her clothes from a special catalog for fat people. It was a nightmare being seen with her. People pointed and stared. Little kids mimicked the way she walked. Sakumo loved his mom, but he tried to find excuses when she wanted to go somewhere with him.
"I went for a five-mile jog yesterday…" Mai said. 'Two laps around Sakumo's mom!"
Sakumo looked up from his book.
'That's so funny, Mai. Even funnier than the first three times you said it."
Sakumo wasn't the toughest kid in school, but any boy would get a punch for saying jokes like that. But what could you do when it was a girl?
Tomorrow, no matter what Miss Dodds said, he'd sit as far from Mai as he could.
"Your mum is so fat—"
Sakumo was sick of it. He jumped up so fast his stool tipped over backward.
"What the fuck is your problem, Mai?" Sakumo shouted.
The lab went quiet. Every eye turned to their table.
"What's the matter, Sakumo?" Mai grinned. "Can't take a joke?"
"Sakumo, pick up your seat and get on with your work," Miss Dodds shouted.
"You say one more word, Mai, and I'll …"
Sakumo was never any good at comebacks when it came to girls. What was he supposed to say that wouldn't make him look like an ass?
"I'll—"
Mai giggled. "What will you do, Sakumo? Go home and cuddle big fat foster Mommy?'
Sakumo wanted to see something other than a stupid grin on Mai's face. He grabbed Mai off her stool, shoved her up against the wall, then spun her around to face him.
He froze in shock.
Blood was running down Mai's face. Her cheek had a long cut where it had caught on a nail sticking out of the wall.
Sakumo backed away. Mai cupped her hands over the blood and started bawling her head off.
"Sakumo!" Miss Dodds gasped. "You are in extremely serious trouble!"
Everyone in class was making some sort of noise. Sakumo had no idea what to do. No one would believe it was an accident. Shohei was going to hate him!
He made a run for the door, but Miss Dodds grabbed his blazer.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Get out my way," Sakumo said and gave Miss Dodds a shove. She toppled backward, limbs flipping helplessly in the air like a turtle turned upside down on its shell.
Sakumo slammed the classroom door and ran down the corridor. The school gates were locked, but he escaped over the barrier in the teachers' car park and stormed away from school, muttering to himself getting less angry and more scared as it dawned on him that he was in the deepest trouble of his life.
He walked for what felt like hours, his legs carrying him aimlessly through familiar neighborhoods that now seemed strange and hostile. Every passing car made him flinch, expecting it to be a police cruiser or worse—Shohei's parents coming to look for him. The cut on Mai's face kept flashing in his mind, along with Miss Dodds sprawled on the floor like an overturned beetle.
His phone buzzed in his pocket for the hundredth time. Probably Shohei. Or the school trying to reach his foster mom. He switched it off completely.
The afternoon sun beat down on his neck as he found himself in the shopping district across town. His throat was dry, and his school uniform felt suffocating. He needed to think, to figure out what to do next. But his brain kept spinning in circles, replaying the scene in the classroom over and over.
He hadn't meant to hurt Mai. He really hadn't. But trying to explain that to anyone—to Shohei, to the school, to his foster mom—seemed impossible now. He was too old for this kind of mistake.
Sakumo was eighteen in a few weeks. He wouldn't just be suspended or expelled. They might press charges.
His stomach growled, reminding him he'd missed breakfast this morning because Mai wanted to walk to school early. The familiar sign of Eddie's Mart caught his eye.
He'd left his chocolate milk in his in Miss Dodds room—a tragedy, really—so he stopped at the little mart. He had three bucks in his pocket, which should've covered a bottle, right?
Wrong.
Sakumo stepped up to the counter, chocolate milk in one hand and some crumpled bills in the other. When he tossed the money onto the scratched countertop, the cashier, a pimply-faced guy with a bored expression eyed the mess of cash then gave him a look over the cash register's glowing green digits.
"Three dollars and two cents," Pimple-Face Clerk said tapping the green numbers. "You're two cents short."
More than three dollars? For one lousy bottle of milk? Sakumo must've made a sour face because Pimple-Face snickered.
"What, you don't have enough milk money?"
Sakumo dug in his jeans for spare change. A lone penny mocked him from the bottom of his pocket. He saw the 'take-a-penny, leave-a-penny tray' and scooped one of the copper coins up.
"Hey!" Pimple-Face's eyes narrowed like Sakumo had just killed his dog or something as he dropped the pennies on the counter. "The cup says 'take a penny, leave-a-penny'. It doesn't say take a penny."
Before Sakumo could blink, Pimple-Face had snatched the pennies back, dumping them into the tray with a metallic clink.
"C'mon, man, it's just a penny."
Pimple-Face made a big show of shrugging, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "If daddy didn't give you enough milk money, that's not my problem."
Sakumo turned away from the counter, eager to get out of the depressing excuse for a convenience mart before he did something incredibly stupid. Like smacking the shit out Pimple-Face for being such an asshole over a penny.
A scruffy, middle-aged dude with long blond hair in a ponytail took his place at the counter, reeking of stale beer and cigarettes. The guy was holding a case of Bud Light and slammed it down with a grunt.
Pimple-Face sighed dramatically. "You know the drill. I need to see some ID."
Ponytail Guy waved a dismissive hand and turned away from the counter, his attention snagged by a display of sunglasses hanging on a wire rack. He ran his fingers along the rows of plastic frames before picking out a pair with bright neon frames.
Pimple-Face scowled. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you not to mess with the merchandise unless you plan on buying."
Ponytail Guy shrugged and let the cracked shades drop back into the wire basket. But his carelessness brought the whole display clattering down in a heap of tangled wires and plastic frames behind the counter.
"Seriously?" Pimple-Face bent over to clean up the mess, muttering under his breath. "Why do I even bother..."
That's when Ponytail Guy struck.
Faster than you could say "shoplifting scumbag," Ponytail Guy lunged over the counter, his hand disappearing into the cash register. He scooped up a fistful of bills, his movements practiced and smooth.
Sakumo stood there, frozen with his jaw hanging open. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Did that dude just… rob the place?
Ponytail Guy must've seen his dumbstruck expression because he locked eyes with Sakumo for a split second. His lips curled into a smug smirk as he scooped up the bottle of chocolate milk.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed it across the store.
On pure instinct, Sakumo snatched the bottle out of the air. Now, he wasn't much for stealing, but he had to admit—Pimple-Face had it coming for being such a dick over one stupid penny.
Sakumo turned to hurry out of the mart, but a shout from Pimple-Face stopped him in his tracks.
Pimple-Face had finally noticed what Ponytail Guy had done. "Hey! Hey, you can't do that!" he was shouting and his hand reached for something under the counter.
Oh shit! Sakumo froze. Was Pimple-Face going for a gun? Was someone about to be shot over a few bucks?
Ponytail Guy must've had the same thought because he lifted his jacket and whipped out a pistol from his waistband. He didn't even hesitate.
BANG!
Sakumo jumped nearly a foot in the air as the gunshot cracked through the store. The bullet caught Pimple-Face square in the chest. His grimy work shirt started turning red and his eyes went glassy with shock as he crumpled backward, hitting the floor with a sickening thud.
Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Sakumo could feel his heart thundering against his ribs. Someone had just been shot! Right in front of him!
Ponytail Guy didn't even flinch as Pimple-Face went down. He swung the pistol toward Sakumo and the boy found himself staring down the barrel. Ponytail stalked over to the unmoving body of Pimple-Face and kicked him hard in the ribs, making sure he was really down for the count.
"Sorry, kid," Ponytail Guy said when Pimple-Face still didn't move or even make a sound.
"Wait! Wait!" Sakumo shouted.
On pure panic-driven reflex his hands shot up in surrender, but Ponytail Guy wasn't listening.
His finger tightened on the trigger again.
BANG!
The force of the bullet slamming into Sakumo's body knocked him backward and he hit the dirty linoleum floor in a heap. He could feel a burning pain in his chest. His body balled up on the ground and somewhere far away he could hear the sound of sirens.
"Fuck!" Ponytail Guy shouted and he ran out of the store.
Sakumo watched him go, his chest still burning. So hot. Beyond anything that he'd describe as pain.
Am I going to die…?
"Oh my god!" a voice suddenly yelled and Sakumo felt hands on his body.
He looked up at the hazy figures crowding around him. Strangers who had noticed the commotion were watching him. Most were on their phones...and they weren't dialing 9-1-1 for help. They were recording. He was dying, and they were all recording it.
What the hell was wrong with them?
Only one man was trying to help. An older man who looked like he was on death's door himself.
"Y-you're bleeding...you won't stop bleeding!"
Sakumo really didn't need to hear that right now. No shit he was bleeding. He was human and was just shot!
If you stab me, I'll probably bleed all over! But damn, this is starting to hurt though...
The burning feeling in his chest was starting to fizzle out. Replaced by an intense, frigid cold attacking him from head to toe.
That... That's probably bad... People die once they bleed too much, don't they?
The pain and the heat were pretty well gone by now. It was just cold. Cold as hell. He felt as if I was gonna freeze in place.
Shit. I think this might really be it...
He was going to die. Sakumo could feel it, and he hated it. He'd never had anything going for him his entire life and it…It wasn't FAIR!
There was a sound like jingling bells and a translucent box appeared floating in the air above him.
Do you wish to live?
Yes or No?
What is that? Sakumo tried to speak. And failed. He tried to reach out and touch the box, but his arms weren't listening. They wouldn't move.
He summoned up his remaining strength, striving to whisper one more word.
"...yes..."
Confirmed.
Reincarnation requested.
The screen expanded, covering Sakumo in a wave of purple light. He felt his body being pulled forward, then the sensation of falling overcame him, and then—
A lifetime of foreign memories crashed into his mind, integrating with his consciousness in a dizzying rush.
|—|
Sakumo, or rather Izuno Sakumo woke staring at clouds. He pushed himself up off the ground, and his head swam, the world around him turning into a blur of greens and browns. The first thing that went through his mind was: I can't believe I lost to Sasuke again! The second thing was: Oh shit, I just got shot!
But…that didn't make any sense. How could he have been shot by a gun? He didn't even know what a gun was!
The last thing he remembered was Mizuki pairing Sasuke and him together for sparring practice and Sasuke knocking him out with one punch to the head.
Sakumo lifted his hand and gingerly touched the side of his head, wincing at the large bruise already swelling above his ear. Sasuke went too far, as usual, he thought, resisting the urge to spit curses about the Uchiha prodigy. But what should have been a normal moment of frustration after a sparring match suddenly became much more complex.
He wasn't just Izuno Sakumo anymore.
The last few seconds of his daydream played over and over again in his mind, so vivid he could feel himself being shot in his chest, and his body shutting down as he died.
Except that dream didn't feel like a bad dream...or even a nightmare.
It felt like a memory.
Fucking low-life criminals. Who the hell shot two people for a few bucks?
It shouldn't be possible. Yet, it definitely did happen. Sakumo was no Uchiha, but he knew enough about Genjutsu to tell what was real and what were illusions.
And what he saw was undoubtedly real.
Sakumo shook his head, trying to sort through the tangle of memories. He'd lived eighteen years as Izuno Sakumo, orphan of Konoha. But he'd also lived another life, and somehow, even more bizarre than that, he had memories of watching an 'anime' called "Naruto", all about the life of Naruto Uzumaki.
"This is crazy," Sakumo muttered.
He had memories of seeing Naruto around the academy. The orange-wearing loudmouth was a year younger than him, so they had never had classes together until this year, but the Naruto that Sakumo knew was the same blonde from the anime.
A shadow passed over his face and he heard a relieved sigh.
"Take it easy," a voice suggested. The tone was calm but there was something else… something Sakumo couldn't quite place. Concern? Mockery? It was hard to tell.
Sakumo blinked away the blurring colors and looked up at the guy staring down at him. The guy was older than him by a few years, probably in his mid-20's, with silver shoulder-length hair. He wore the standard Leaf Village chunin uniform, complete with a forehead protector and flak jacket.
Mizuki-sensei…
"Here," Mizuki offered, extending a hand to help him up.
"Thank... you..." Sakumo mumbled, still struggling to get his head straight as he accepted Mizuki's hand.
He needed to act normal, but he couldn't trust Mizuki; he was just a snake in the grass, waiting to strike. Sakumo still wasn't completely sure if he was losing his mind or not, but if he wasn't, then Mizuki was a traitor!
"Are you alright?" Mizuki asked, his concern clearly fake from to Sakumo's new perspective. "You were unconscious for a few minutes. Do you need to see a medic?"
"I'm fine," Sakumo grunted, swaying slightly as he managed to stand on shaky legs. He needed to get away from Mizuki or he was gonna deck him. "Can I be dismissed for the day?"
Mizuki smiled his fake smile and nodded. "Of course! Go home, get some rest!" he patted Sakumo on the back. "Tomorrow's the graduation exam, and without a doctor's note, Iruka won't make any exceptions."
Right, the graduation exam, Sakumo thought as left the academy grounds, his head still pounding from both Sasuke's punch and the rush of new memories. He walked through the streets of Konoha, the familiar sights and sounds took on a surreal quality.
Everything was exactly as it should be, yet it all felt somehow different now.
He stopped as he passed by the Hokage Monument, his gaze drawn to a commotion near the top. There, just as he remembered from the anime, was Naruto, scrubbing furiously at the graffiti he'd painted on the stone faces while Iruka stood below, arms crossed, supervising the cleanup.
Sakumo snorted. Some things never change. The walk to his home in the small Izuno clan compound near the village's edge felt like it took forever. By the time he reached his place in the Izuno compound, he was ready to crash. He fumbled with his keys and stumbled through the door.
Once inside, he made his way to his bedroom and flopped onto his bed with a groan.
How was this possible? None of it made sense. The lack of chakra and jutsu in the stranger's world made the connection even more confusing. How could someone from another dimension not only see clearly into the shinobi world enough to write a story about it...but even predict its future?
And what about that floating box thing? It looked almost like a status—
With a sound similar to that of bells jingling, a translucent purple rectangle materialized in midair.
Name: Sakumo Izuno
Age: 18
Rank: Academy Student
Chakra Reserves: 300/500
Ninjutsu: 457/500
Taijutsu: 480/500
Genjutsu: 225/500
Strength: 500/500
Speed: 450/500
Stamina: 500/500
Chakra Control: 310/500
The stats on display looked identical to the "Databook" stats Sakumo saw in his new memories of the other world. He tried to touch the screen, only to have his finger pass through it as if it were an illusion.
Nothing happened until he swiped his hand down, and poof! The screen vanished, leaving him staring at the small icon at the bottom of his field of vision.
Sakumo flopped back onto his bed. "I suppose it could be worse," he sighed.
At least he wasn't the one who had died. And the knowledge he had gained was going to be extremely useful.
Or at least he hoped it would be.
There were some obvious differences between the real shinobi world and the shinobi world portrayed in the anime from his new memories.
Why was everyone so young? Sakumo wondered staring up at his ceiling. In the anime, Naruto graduated from the academy at the age of twelve. That wasn't not true, but it only happened during times of war, when the village would loosen the age requirement, sending young and inexperienced Genin into battle even if they were just fodder for the more seasoned shinobi.
During peacetime, however, the Third Hokage had firmly decreed that academy students must reach the age of seventeen to graduate. Of course, exceptions were made for exceptionally gifted individuals who completed their studies ahead of schedule. But even those exceptions stopped after Itachi Uchiha went nuts and killed his entire family.
Which was why having failed his previous attempt at the graduation exam, Sakumo found himself still attending the academy at eighteen, about to graduate with his classmates who were just a year younger than him.
"The graduation exam," Sakumo muttered, rubbing his eyes. It was tomorrow, and he knew he should be focusing on that. But his mind kept jumping to the future and all the devastation that Konoha would face in the next few years.
Orochimaru's invasion during the upcoming Chunin Exams, Sasuke Uchiha leaving the village, the Akatsuki collecting the Tailed-Beasts, Pain's attack on the Hidden Leaf, the Fourth Shinobi World War!
The thought of the devastation that Konoha would face in the coming years was almost unthinkable. The weight of it all was crushing, and he couldn't help but wonder if there was anything he could do to change the course of events.
"One thing at a time," Sakumo told himself. "Pass the exam first, then figure out how to save the world or whatever."