Chapter 1 - A New World

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was light—blinding, overwhelming light. It spread across his vision, so intense that it made his eyes water and forced him to squint. It was unbearable at first, but gradually shapes began to form in the blur, and soon enough, the bright haze gave way to a clearer picture.

Once his vision adjusted, the first thing he noticed was a young lady looking down at him. Her face hovered above his, close enough that he could make out every detail of her features. She was one gorgeous girl—wait, no. She was definitely a woman; fair-skinned with long, straight black hair with bangs hanging on either side of her face to roughly frame her cheeks and black eyes that were soft and kind. She wasn't just beautiful—she exuded a strange, radiant warmth, as if her very presence was meant to comfort him.

For a moment, he stared at her, dumbfounded. Who was she? She was gorgeous in that way that reminded him of his 5th-grade teacher, Miss Pennington. The kind of beauty that usually wouldn't give him the time of day, let alone hover over him with such intense interest. And given his track record with beautiful women in his life—which is to say, none of them knew he existed—the adoring look in this hotties eyes should've been his first clue that something very strange was happening.

Before he could gather his thoughts, he noticed someone else. A young man roughly the same age was standing by the woman's side with a friendly but awkward smile. Short and slightly messy brown hair, and a sharp jawline gave him a rugged look.

He should have reacted negatively the instant he saw the big oaf—but to his surprise, there was no feeling of ill will. that was surprising, because he could tell just from one glance the guy was was the kind of insincere type he hated. Handsome with broad shoulders and arms thick with muscle. What did a guy like that have to be awkward about?

It wasn't just the guy's impressive physique that caught his attention—it was the clothing. The man wore some kind of thick green vest with a dark blue shirt underneath, but the oddest thing was the shiny metal plate strapped across his forehead.

The metal plate, attached to a dark blue cloth, reflected the light. It had an engraving in its center, a strange spiral symbol that reminded him of a leaf.

What is that? Was this guy part of some cosplay group? He resisted the urge to laugh, though it wasn't easy.

The woman leaned closer with a warm smile, her lips moving as she spoke. Her voice was gentle, but her words were oddly indistinct and difficult to make out. Was she even speaking English?

The man said something in reply. Their unintelligible conversation continued for a moment, and he felt a flicker of irritation. They were talking about him, weren't they? Of course they were.

Then, another voice joined the mix, but he couldn't see who was speaking. He tried to sit up and demand answers—where was he, who were these people, and why was everything so strange?—but his body refused to cooperate. He struggled, willing his arms to move, but he couldn't move his body. He could sort of move his fingertips and arms, but he couldn't sit up.

And when he opened his mouth, the words he wanted to say came out as nothing but garbled moans.

"Ahh…Waah…"

Oh, great. Now he sounded like a baby. His cheeks burned with humiliation. What was wrong with him?

The brown-haired man said something else, then suddenly leaned down and reached for him.

"Wait, what are you—hey! Don't—"

He was trying to tell the guy to back off and not touch him. Again, what came out was nothing like what he wanted to say:

"Waah…Ahh…!"

The man scooped him up. Effortlessly. Like he weighed nothing at all. How the hell is this guy so strong? He weighed over a hundred kilos, give or take a few. No one should've been able to pick him up this easily, not without a forklift.

Unless... Had he lost weight? Maybe he'd been in a coma for weeks, or even months. That was a pretty nasty accident he'd been in, after all. There was a good chance he hadn't come out of it with all his limbs. Still, even if he'd slimmed down, this guy's strength was unreal.

A minute later, it became clear to him: He was a baby.

Apparently, he'd been reborn. He wasn't just in a strange place or recovering from some bizarre accident—he had been reborn. It wasn't a theory or a fleeting suspicion anymore. It was an undeniable fact.

He confirmed this after being picked up and cradled, his head finally positioned in such a way that he could see his own tiny body. But why did he still have all his memories of his prior life? Not that he was complaining, exactly, but who would imagine someone being reborn with all their memories— to say nothing of that wild delusion actually being true?

The two people he first saw after dying must have been his parents. If he had to guess, he would say they were the same age he had been when he died in his past life. He felt a twinge of jealousy that they'd gotten to make a baby at that age when he hadn't even gone on a date.

X-X

Let's jump ahead a month.

He never imagined that being reborn would involve so much indignity. Trapped in a body that betrayed him at every turn, he felt like a prisoner of soft flesh and uncoordinated limbs. His brain remembered exactly how to do everything—walk, talk, use eating utensils—but his body? This traitorous little meat puppet couldn't even scratch its own nose.

The worst part was the complete and utter lack of control over literally everything. Need to take a shit? Too bad, he was doing it right there in his diaper. And the cleanup? Jesus Christ. Getting his ass wiped by someone else was a special kind of humiliation. Lying there helpless while his young mother, who was the same age as he had been in his past life, wiped places he'd rather not think about, all while cooing, "Who's mommy's little man?"

Speaking of speaking—he still couldn't. It was hard to put into words how frustrating it was having his vocabulary reduced to "goo-goo" and "ga-ga" because his stupid baby mouth couldn't form proper words. The other day, he tried to tell his parents he was hungry and ended up blowing a spit bubble. His parents thought it was adorable. He thought it was mortifying.

But nothing—nothing—could have prepared him for breastfeeding. The first time it happened, he felt like a creep violating a boundary. Face-to-breast with a set of pale, veined, swollen breasts, the areola dark and stretched, with tiny bumps he could feel against his tongue because apparently that's a thing babies can sense to help them feed.

In his past life, he would have paid good money for that kind of view of a beautiful woman.

Now, every time she unbuttoned her shirt, he tried to dissociate into another dimension. Sometimes a drop of milk beaded at the tip before he latched, and his baby brain flooded with dopamine and pure satisfaction, while his adult mind screamed in horror. What was the proper etiquette when he was literally sucking milk from a stranger's breast? Should he close his eyes? Maintain eye contact? Pretend this wasn't the most bizarre thing that had ever happened to him?

The rhythm of it—suck, swallow, breathe—was completely involuntary. His body knew exactly what to do, and sometimes he drifted into a milk-drunk haze. The warmth, the closeness, the pure animal satisfaction of hunger being met. For a few blissful moments, he forgot about the absurdity of it all. Then his adult consciousness kicked back in, and he was hit with the full reality: here he was, sucking on his own mother's breasts.

It was terrifying how quickly he could adjust to something so fundamentally weird. Sometimes he caught himself actually looking forward to it when he was hungry, reduced to this desperate, primal need for milk. The moment his stomach started growling, he became just another screaming infant, dignity be damned.

He had wished he could go back and do everything over again, but being born as a baby—a helpless, drooling potato—wasn't exactly what he had in mind.

X-X

Another half a year went by.

After six months of listening to his parents talking, he'd begun to pick up some of the language. Mostly names. His name was Sakumo, his mother's name was Mazuma, his father's name was Yashiro and the maid that lived with them was Otoha. He had given up on six different Rosetta stone languages, but maybe, given that he had a new body, his brain was better suited to learning this time? He felt like he had an unusual knack for remembering things, perhaps because he was still so young.

Around this time, he started learning to crawl as well. Being able to move was a marvelous thing. He'd never been so grateful to have control of his own body.

"As soon as you take your eyes off him, he slips off somewhere," he said.

"Hey, so long as he's good and healthy," his father replied, watching him as he crawled around. "I was worried back when he was born, and he never cried."

"He doesn't cry now, either, does he?"

Sakumo wasn't exactly the age to whine because he was hungry. The only times he let the wailing out were when he tried and invariably failed to stop himself from soiling his pants.

Even though he could only crawl, he learned a lot from being able to move around. The first thing he learned was that his family definitely had money. Their house was a wooden structure with over five separate rooms, and they had one live-in nanny on staff. At first, he'd assumed she was his aunt or something, but given her deferential attitude toward his mother and father, he doubted she was family.

Their house was on the outskirts of a much larger settlement. From his view out the window, he could see a little of the town they lived near. It was sprawling but not chaotic, with a mix of homes, shops, and other buildings clustered together and occasionally he would catch a glimpse of people walking along dirt-packed roads lined with merchant stands and carts.

And beyond the village was the most curious thing of all: a mountain.

The mountain loomed over the settlement, its sheer size dominating the horizon. At first glance, it seemed like any other mountain—rugged, imposing, and crowned with greenery near the top. But as his eyes adjusted to the distance, he noticed something... strange.

The mountain wasn't just rock and trees. Its surface had been carved into massive, lifelike faces.

From this distance, with his crappy baby vision, the details were blurry, but he thought there were at least four faces, staring stoically out over the village. They reminded him of giant busts—like the kind of thing you'd see at a museum or in old photos of Mount Rushmore.

He had no idea who those faces belonged to or why they'd been carved into the mountainside, but it was undeniably impressive. Whoever these people were, they must've been important.

But all of that changed early one afternoon.

As the things he could do were pretty limited, Sakumo decided he'd look at the scenery. He clambered onto a chair to get a peek out through the window and then his eyes went wide.

"Hah!"

His father was in their yard, swinging a sword around. What in the world was he doing? He was old enough to know better than that. Was this the kind of person his dad was? Some sort of fantasy dweeb?

Uh-oh.

In his daze of astonishment, he started slipping from the chair. His underdeveloped hands grabbed the chair but couldn't support his weight—not with how top-heavy his head made him—and he fell.

He hit the floor with a thud and immediately heard a cry of alarm. He saw his mother drop the load of laundry she was carrying, her face going pale as she brought her hand to her mouth.

"Sakumo, are you all right?!" She rushed to his side and picked him up. As she met his gaze, her expression slackened with relief, and she stroked his head. "Aw, you're fine, see?"

Easy there, lady, he thought. Careful with my head. I just whacked that thing.

Given how panicked she'd looked, he must have had a pretty nasty fall. He did land right on his head. Maybe he was going to be permanently stupid. Not that that would be a change from the usual.

His head throbbed. He tried to reach for the chair but couldn't muster the energy. His mother didn't seem so nervous now, though, so he probably wasn't bleeding or anything. Just a bump or something, in all likelihood.

She examined his head carefully. The look on her face suggested that injury or no, she was taking this pretty seriously. Finally, she set him in her lap to free her hands and used her fingers to form some kind of sign. "Just to be safe..." she began. Her hands glowed with a faint green light as she touched his forehead and the pain in his head was instantly gone.

What the heck?

"There we go," she said. "All better! You know, Mommy might only be a genin, I'm a medical-nin so I still know a lot of useful healing Jutsu." Her voice rang with pride.

Sakumo was starting to put the pieces together. The mix of traditional setting with advanced technology, the faces on the mountain, the hand signs, healing jutsu, Genin and Medical-Nin…holy crap…

His father, having heard his mother's earlier scream, poked his head through the window. "What's the matter?" he asked. He was sweating, probably from swinging that sword of his around.

"Honey, you have to be more attentive. Sakumo managed to climb up onto the chair. He could have been seriously hurt."

Sakumo's father seemed much more composed. "Hey, boys will be boys," he said. "Kid's got a lot of energy."

This sort of back-and-forth was pretty common with his parents. But this time, his mother wasn't simply backing down, probably because of how he'd hit his head.

"Honey, he isn't even a year old yet. Would it kill you to show some more concern?"

"It's like I said: falling and stumbling and getting bumps and bruises is how kids grow up to be tough! Besides, if he does get hurt, You can just heal him!"

"I'm just worried that he might get hurt so badly medical ninjutsu can't fix it."

"He'll be fine," his father assured her.

His mother clutched him more tightly, her face going red.

"You were worried early on about how he wouldn't cry. If he's this much of a little scamp, then he'll be fine," his father continued, and then he leaned in to give his mother a kiss.

All right, you two. Get a room, will ya?

After that, his parents took him into the other room to put him to bed, then headed upstairs to make him a baby brother or sister. He could tell because he could hear the creaking and moaning coming from down the hall. He guessed there was life outside the internet.

And also... was he in the Naruto world?

X-X

In the wake of all that, Sakumo paid extra attention to everything his parents and Otoha said. He started picking up all these terms he'd heard before—names of villages and countries he recognized from Naruto. Plus all this talk about missions and jutsu and a war that just ended.

He didn't want to jump to conclusions, but by this point there was only one explanation: He actually in the Naruto world?

A world of chakra and jutsu.

And then it hit him—if he lived in this world, he could use Chakra too. He could be a ninja, learn jutsu, walk on water, maybe even become someone important.

His old self had died full of regret, feeling frustrated at his powerlessness and how he'd never accomplished anything. But now he knew all of his missteps. And with all the knowledge and experience with the Naruto anime from his past life, he could finally do it.

He could finally live right.