This Unstable Amalgam Called Life

The life story of man who has died more times than he's ever really lived. Well, it's the story about one of his lives. OC Self-Insert.

Chapter 2: Of Confrontation and Consideration.

Academy Training Grounds.

Ahh, fresh air.

Feels good after being stuck in that infernal building all day. If I ever have to go through school again, I'm going to blow something right the fuck up.

…What?

Explosions are cathartic and being a domestic terrorist would most likely be more fun than being a student again anyway… Probably. Back to the matter at hand though, now I just have to kick the shit out of this brat, and I can get back to contemplating what to do about my Nen.

Though speaking of the brat, it looks like he plans to take me seriously. Smart kid. Not that it really matters though. Even without my special ability, this twerp is about a hundred years too young to challenge a Nen master… Despite the fact that I'm stuck in a child's body.

Again.

Still, I should be somewhat cautious at the least. Shinobi are notoriously tricky, after all. But there's something about this little fucker that's bugging me. He looks… Somewhat familiar.

…

…Wait a minute. Is that… Sai's brother? What's his name again, Shu? Sho? Shi? …Shin? Yeah, that's it! Motherfucking Shin. Why is one of Danzo's Ne agents here?

Damnit

Sarutobi must have let something slip to Danzo. Senile old fuck. Great. Now Danzo, of all fucking people is curious about me. Probably attempting to gauge my strength to see if I can be useful to him. How… Annoying.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention; Sarutobi knows that I'm an interdimensional interloper at this point. He's the only one who knows at the moment though, and he's labeled everything that I revealed as an S-class secret. So, I'd expected it to stay that way.

Well, not really. If I'm honest.

This village fucking sucks at secrecy half of the time. I did expect to have more time before people got too curious though, but oh well. What can you do?

Anyway, I guess now is as good a time as any to fill you in a bit more on my arrival to the world of Naruto.

Flashback time!

Forest of Death: Sixteen days prior.

*Crash*

"Owww… My spine…"

…

…Did I just fall like thirty feet for no reason?

Typical.

Ugh… God, why does it feel like I got run over by a truck? Wait… Oh, that's right. Someone (presumably some assassin) fucking beamed a truck at me at like Mach fucking twenty-five. Oh well, at least I'd lived long enough to grow old that time.

Still though, not cool.

More importantly, where the hell am I right now? Okay, baby steps. First off, let's try to get a feel for my current surroundings…

…It's trees. My surroundings are trees. Huge fucking trees in literally every direction. So, a forest then. Not a huge revelation, but at least it's a start. Hmm, maybe I should climb to the canopy and look for a city or something.

…

…Wait a second, I still have Nen. Why do I still have my Nen? That did kill me, didn't it? Am I still in the Hunter x Hunter-verse? Is this the NGL? This is odd…

Well, better get to climbing. Hopefully I can reach a revelation up there.

…

…No fucking way.

I'm not sure whether I should laugh or cry right now.

This is fucking Konoha. I'm in Konohagakure no Sato. The Motherfucking Village Hidden in The Motherfucking Leaves.

Which means, I'm in the Naruto-verse.

Naruto.

…

…Why is this my life?

Fucking hell, why do I still have my Nen then? Shouldn't I have chakra now?

The Fuck.

Shit, I need to calm down. I need some information. What's the time period? I'm assuming that I'll be part of one of the central plots, considering I've been made a child.

Again.

For the THIRD. FUCKING. TIME.

I am so fucking sick of puberty… Wait a minute… What's my gender right now?

…

Oh, thank god. I still have a penis. No offence ladies, but I've been a woman before, and periods are absolutely fucking awful. You have my deepest apologies for being put through the hell that is menstruation.

Wait, shit. I have more important things to worry about at the moment.

I think… I think I should probably go talk to the Hokage. If I'm really going to try and figure out this reincarnation business, then I'll probably need help. I'm in way over my head here.

Hopefully it's Minato or Sarutobi in office at the moment. They both seem like reasonable men. I can probably convince one of them of my plight without getting thrown in T&I for… Fun times, if you catch my drift.

Well, hopefully anyway. They are still Kage after all.

Hokage's Office: Twenty minutes later.

"So, Jei-kun" Sarutobi started.

"What was this urgent matter you wished to speak with me about?" He asked, his tone was as warm and grandfatherly as I'd remembered from my first life. Hopefully it's not all for show.

"Uh... Well, Hokage-sama. I'm… not exactly sure where to start." I explained, the uncertainty clouding my mind making its way through to my voice.

"This'll be… a lot to take in. If you even believe me in the first place." I continued.

"Hmm… Well, I'm sure whatever it is you're so concerned about isn't as unbelievable as you fear." He responded.

Really? Because the last time I tried telling someone about this, I almost got thrown into an asylum.

"As for where you should start, I'd suggest starting at the beginning of what's troubling you." He concluded.

"The beginning…" I muttered to myself. I guess that is as good a place as any.

"Alright then."

Well, he asked for it. This'll probably take a while

"So, Hokage-sama. Have you ever heard that theory? The one that claims…"

Academy Training Grounds: Present Time

…And that's the extent of it really. I went to the Hokage's office for a chat, and luckily Sarutobi is currently the reining Kage. It took some convincing… a lot of convincing, but I got him to eventually come around. Intimate knowledge of the future and past of this world is helpful like that.

Also, a large majority of the memories of my new life formed in my head shortly after our chat. During an exploration of the village after seeing Sarutobi, to be exact. Convenient, but I don't think I'll ever get used to memories just appearing in my mind like that. It's like feeling Déjà vu and Jamais vu at the same time, but on steroids.

"Jei Sun! Are you even paying attention! Show your opponent The Seal of Confrontation and prepare yourself! The match is about to start!" Iruka yelled, and wow seeing the legendary Big-Head no Jutsu is still… mildly disconcerting, to say the least.

"Oh, sorry Iruka-sensei. I was just lost in thought for a moment." I said while showing Shin the seal, as he did the same for me.

"Well get your head in the game Jei-kun, we're about to kick it off!" started Mizuki sensei.

"Hajime!" He then shouted.

Shin immediately jumped back and adopted a defensive stance. His eyes were appraising, waiting to see how I might try to attack him.

Does he really think I'm going to bother to take the initiative here? I said I'd be cautious; I didn't say I'd take this twerp seriously. I do want to have some fun after all.

"Ah, excuse me. Uhh…" I started; I can't remember if anyone told me his name yet. Oh well, if they have, then acting like I forgot will probably tick him off a bit anyway.

"Shin." He responded. His voice may not have held any emotion in it, but I can tell he's a bit miffed. So, they did mention his name then. How fun.

"Shin-san, then." I continued; my voice as polite as I could manage.

"If you really plan on letting me make the first move, then this fight will last all of three seconds." I said, maintaining my demure charade.

"Should you wish to stand a decent chance, then come at me as if you mean to kill me." I finished, letting a condescending mirth color my tone.

His eyes narrowed in irritation. Ha! Emotional conditioning my ass. This kid is easy to wind up.

"Very well then, Jei Sun-san." His voice was deadly serious.

"Here I come." He said with frankly impressive finality. How adorable.

Oh! I just realized something! This should be a good enough time to check for it too. I need to see if Gyo can let me see the molding of externalized chakra. I've already looked at few shinobi with it, but none of them were actively using chakra at the time so I couldn't tell. Anyway, knowing skilled shinobi, they were probably suppressing their chakra to begin with. Gyo doesn't give me x-ray vision unfortunately, so unless someone is externally molding chakra, I won't be able to check if it's possible. Though presumably, I should be able to see it just fine with Gyo, since chakra is essentially life energy. The same way Nen is.

Shit! Here he comes!

And he's actually pretty quick! I guess not all of Danzo's training methods suck ass.

…Aaand he just pulled a tanto. Is that legal? I guess that's what I get for letting myself get distracted, and I did just recommend to him that he should try to murder me. So, I guess that's fair.

Still rude though.

But at least this is shaping up to actually be fun. That's always nice.

"Wow, Princess is getting really cocky out there." Kiba said while watching from the sidelines with the rest of the graduating class that decided to stick around to watch.

"You know, if you keep calling him that he might just try to break your face again dog breath." Sasuke shot in with his signature condescending snark. Arrogant smirk included.

"Yeah right! He wishes he could take me on! Besides what else should I call him? Have you seen his face? If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was a chick!" Kiba countered.

"You should probably try calling him by his name moron. Or did you forget that he floored you with a flick to the forehead?" Shikamaru drawled, his irritation at not being able to sleep entirely apparent. It's truly a wonder that he bothered to come in the first place.

"So?! He just caught me off guard is all! I could take him in a straight fight." Kiba then tried.

"That's the thing, Kiba. He caught you off guard. We're shinobi now, getting caught off guard means getting killed." Shikamaru cut in again.

"Besides, and as much as I hate to admit this," Sasuke then began.

"Jei Sun is stronger than us." He stated. Kiba was now paying rapt attention due to Sasuke's admission.

"The fact that they got a genin with at least a year of experience for this spar isn't because of his condition, but to make sure that they could push him enough to try and properly gauge his skills. They already know that he's at least genin level in combat ability." He carried on.

"Despite his inability to use Ninjutsu and Genjutsu, he's still stronger than the entirety of our class. This test is just an excuse to try and see how good he really is." Sasuke finished, clearly none too pleased about being weaker than one of his peers.

"Tch, whatever. He's still a Princess anyway." Kiba finished petulantly.

These idiots do know that I can actually hear what they're saying right? Well, at least Sasuke's learned some humility. It'll be good for his angsty, half-mad, stupidly-revenge-driven ass in the long run. Well... Hopefully, anyways. It might just wind up driving his hunger for power even further.

Eh, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

*Swish*

Oops, I should pay a bit more attention. Little fucker just almost cut my hair. If he actually manages to cut it, I will try my hardest to completely humiliate this uppity little shit.

Hmm, maybe Kiba's nickname for me is slightly more appropriate than I'd thought…

Wait, no! I take that back! I refuse to accept his shitty fucking name for me. This was just a minor moment of weakness and has no bearing on my alleged feelings of acceptance for Kiba's idiocy.

Duck!

Goddammit Shin! Stop trying to cut my fucking head off, I'm trying to think! Kids these days, no respect. Welp, better focus up. I probably shouldn't let this drag on for too long. Wouldn't want anyone to discover that my chakra isn't really chakra.

Considering that Gyo should theoretically let me see chakra, then conversely any Dōjutsu that lets you see chakra should make my Nen visible. And I do not feel like dealing with that revelation at the moment.

There! He's slightly overextended on his overhead slash and will be a little slow to recover. Perfect.

Ko!

I slipped into an offensive stance whilst he tried to recover from his slash and launched a palm-strike at his midsection. Too fast for him to dodge, but just slow enough for him to see it coming. The look of dawning realization in his eyes is absolutely delicious.

The palm-strike looked relatively gentle to the onlookers. That is, until it landed of course.

*THUD*

"Oomph!" He let out as the blow sent him skidding to edge of the arena. He was holding his chest in pain, looking a bit winded from the attack.

Oh, he managed to stay in the ring. I'm impressed. I don't think I even managed to fracture his ribs. Well, if he can handle that then I can probably showoff a little.

I drew a wooden training kunai and closed my eyes, as my opponent readied himself. Once again adopting a defensive stance.

Good choice.

En!

Tch, barely even fifteen meters. Pathetic. I could reach fifty no problem in my prime, more if I'd pushed. Oh well, it's enough for now. It'll probably be awhile before I can recover the full extent of my Nen.

Shu!

I held my wooden blade at the ready. Shu making it at least as durable as any steel blade would be.

Oh, he's changed his stance. Iaijutsu? Is that even effective with a tanto? Well, he must be confident that it is if he's going to rely on it.

Okay then, let's see how fast you are.

"Here I come, Shin-san." I said, the malice I was currently feeling slipping into my tone.

"Come." He calmly replied, looking as cool as a cucumber.

This really is fun.

"Holy shit! He barely even touched him! How did that palm-strike send him flying like that?!" Kiba yelled out, not expecting to see that much power from such a gentle looking blow.

"Presumably the same way he put so much power into that finger flick earlier." Shikamaru replied, now paying rapt attention to fight before him.

"Wait, why is he shutting his eyes- Is that a wooden kunai?! His opponent has a sword. A metal one. Has he lost his mind?!" Kiba exclaimed, not able to comprehend the scene before him.

"The hell are we supposed to know-" Sasuke tried but was suddenly cut off by the pressure in the air that had just descended upon them.

"What the hell…" Let out a startled Shikamaru.

The blood-lust in the air was as potent as it was sudden.

"What is this feeling? This pressure… It feels… Dangerous. Almost like he did that night... Is Jei Sun doing this?" Sasuke wondered aloud, enraptured by the malicious pressure weighing down on them.

"Hinata-san." Shikamaru suddenly said.

"Y-y-yes, Shikamaru-san?" Hinata meekly replied.

"Could use your Byakugan on Jei Sun and tell me if you see anything?" Shikamaru asked, not once taking his eyes off the standoff playing out in front of them.

"S-s-sure, Shikamaru-san. M-my Byakugan isn't very strong though." Hinata acquiesced.

"That's fine. Just tell me anything you see." Shikamaru finished.

"O-okay. Byakugan!" Hinata shouted, activating her Dōjutsu.

"I-it's hard to make out, but there's a d-dome of what looks like chakra about fifteen meters in d-diameter centered on Jei-san." Hinata began explaining.

"T-t-there's also what looks like a c-c-coating of chakra surrounding his w-w-wooden kunai." Hinata stated, her explanation done.

"A dome of chakra?" Shikamaru wondered aloud, his hands now adopting their trademark thinking position.

"Since he's closed his eyes it's safe to assume that it's some sort of sensory technique." Said Shikamaru, his own explanation now beginning.

"He's probably unconsciously letting his blood-lust leak through his chakra, hence this… pressure." He continued.

"And the coating of chakra on the wooden kunai is obviously there to reinforce it, Jei Sun isn't dumb enough to use a weapon like that against a sword unless he was sure it would work." The Nara progeny continued to break down.

"What's really bothering me though," He said, getting to the meat of the matter.

"Is that he's not supposed to able to shape chakra other than just pointing it in the right direction, that's the reason we were given for his inability to use Ninjutsu and Genjutsu." He stated.

"Which clearly isn't the case. That seems like fairly high-level shape manipulation he's doing." Shikamaru went on.

"So, the question at hand is; If Jei Sun is capable of manipulating the shape of his chakra, then why can't he use Ninjutsu or Genjutsu? Does he really have some kind of chakra-related disorder, or is something else going on here?"

"Something isn't adding up." He concluded.

He'd be sure to find out what.

"Wait. What do you mean what looks like chakra?"

Great.

I accidentally let out a little bit of blood-lust through my aura, and now Shikamaru is curious about me too. I just can't catch a break, can I?

Eh, whatever. I've got a fight to finish.

In that vein, I suddenly rushed forward. Bearing down on my opponent like a predator about to strike down its prey. Focused only on the feedback from my En and my target before me.

"That's Enough!" Iruka suddenly shouted. Startling me out of my lust for battle.

I subsequently tripped and fell directly on my face.

The blood-lust vanished as quickly as it came.

"Owww…" I complained while sitting up.

"The hell Iruka-sensei? I was about to win! It's not like I was actually going to try to maim him…" I whined; my disappointment clear.

"Well, maybe a little…" I muttered under my breath.

"Be that as it may, we've seen quite enough Jei-kun." Mizuki-sensei explained.

"That's right. Congratulations, Jei Sun. You passed." Iruka said with a proud smile on his face.

"You can come collect your Hitai-ate." He finished; his tone warm.

"Oh." I said lamely as I went to stand. I walked over to them and took my proof of becoming a Konoha shinobi. Hmm, where to put it? Eh, I'll just tie it around my waist like a belt. Good enough.

"Thank you, Iruka-sensei, Mizuki-sensei. I'll be sure to make you proud as a shinobi of Konoha" I said in a respectful tone while bowing towards my sensei.

Even if Iruka is the only one who really deserves it.

"And Shin-san." I said while forming the Seal of Reconciliation towards my former opponent.

"That was a good spar. You're pretty strong." I told him with a smile.

He returned the gesture and said;

"Thank you, Jei Sun-san. You're much stronger than anticipated."

Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet. I'm just getting started.

Forest of Death: Thirty minutes later.

Well, that was surprisingly fun. I wish it could have gone on a bit longer, but that's what I get for trying to show off.

…Wait. Shit, I forgot to try and test Gyo. Oh well, I'm pretty sure Shin didn't attempt any jutsu anyway. And since Hinata's Byakugan could see my Nen, it's probably safe to assume that Gyo will let me see chakra.

…Maybe. It might also not do anything. Which is probably more likely than I'd like to admit.

Speaking of my now curious classmates though, dealing with an intrigued Shikamaru later is going to be exhausting. I should probably go talk to Sarutobi about trying to write my Nen off as some obscure Kekkei Genkai. That would at least get Shikamaru off of my case. Probably.

Though I'm pretty sure that would just make Danzo even more interested in me than he already is, unfortunately. Eh, whatever. At least then I won't have to worry about keeping my Nen under wraps. I can deal with the old war hawk's curiosity for now. He's not likely to try anything drastic anyway. He's smarter than that.

But I can deal with all that later. Right now, I need to make a decision about my Nen ability. As far as I'm concerned, I have three real options here; Either retrain for my previous ability, use my skill as a transmuter to try and change my aura into chakra, or come up with a new ability suited to fighting shinobi. All three have their own drawbacks.

As much as I liked my previous ability, retraining for it with my current body without having a Nen master on hand to supervise is a bad idea. Even though I was skilled enough to be considered a master in my previous life, this body of mine currently has neither the requisite control nor the potency of aura to attempt the training on my own without serious risk of killing myself. As much fun as manipulating gravitational energy is, the training is currently much too risky to even try.

I'd be likely to accidentally collapse the mass of my body into a point so infinitesimally small that it would form a micro-singularity that would immediately collapse in on itself and disperse into nothingness.

So, yeah. Bad idea. Unfortunately, I don't think this will be an option. For now, at least. I might be able to come back to that later on. Much later on.

Then there's trying to learn to change my aura into chakra. There are three main issues that I immediately thought of with this. One; In order learn how having chakra feels I would need someone to inundate my system with chakra, which could possibly kill me if Nen and chakra aren't totally compatible. Also, just straight up asking someone to do that would probably be... Somewhat suspicious, to say the least. Two; Even if I do manage to actually change my aura into chakra, I'd still have to learn at least one new shinobi discipline completely from scratch. Which would leave me with a lot more catching up to do than I'd like. And Three; If I convert my aura to chakra, there's no guarantee that I'll still be able to use my Nen based skills simultaneously. Meaning I'd also have to then learn how to use chakra defensively as well as offensively, putting me even further behind.

Well, I think I just convinced myself. I'll be creating a new ability. The only real drawbacks here are the time it'll take to develop it and trying to figure something out that's good enough to let me keep up with the more powerful shinobi. Unlike the other two options, I should be able to get a new ability to a passable state by the Chunin Exam Invasion arc. Which is probably going to be my first major hurdle here.

Might as well start by trying to get my basics up to snuff again while I think. Despite the fact the I've retained what I thought was a complete mastery of the basics, that fight with Shin showed me that my Nen isn't quite up to snuff.

A Nen master with a fifteen-meter En.

Pathetic.

"*Pant* Okay… *Pant* One more try… Then I'm calling it a day." I said to myself, barely able to stand at this point.

Yeah, I've been going for like… Seven or eight hours now, I think.

For the first few hours I was focused on seeing how long I could maintain Ren in this body. Which is about four or five hours apparently, an acceptable result. The last few of hours I've been attempting to materialize the new ability I've decided on. I know I said I'd practice the basics but… What can I say? I got impatient.

As for how it's going, I'd say it's going… Poorly. I've not had one successful attempt yet.

I'm trying to use my skill as a transmuter to get my aura to trigger a transformation into the Chimera Ant body that I wound up with in my previous life. That body had multiplied my power several times over, not unlike the curse marks of this world. So, I'm hoping to replicate it here. Hopefully with the ability to revert back to my normal form as well. It'd probably freak people out to see a weird deer-monster running around town.

Anyway, it's proving to be exceptionally difficult. It feels like I'm this close to getting it though. If I do manage to get it, I'll also need to come up with some auxiliary techniques to supplement my transformation, but I can worry about that later. Got to get the technique down before I even start thinking about that.

One more try.

"Okay… Focus your aura inward, to the core of your very being… To the absolute depths of your soul." I said to myself, eyes screwed shut in concentration.

"Now, remember that feeling…" I continued, still deeply concentrating.

That feeling I'm referring to is being killed and reborn… No, I've been through that many times before and it's... Not really a comparable experience. Being made into a Chimera Ant is completely different. It's less like going through reincarnation and more like… compost recycling, I guess. It's… Difficult to explain. Anyway, if I can replicate that feeling, I should be able to trigger the transformation.

Theoretically, at least.

"…Focus." I said aloud.

"…Focus." I repeated.

Then I felt it. The feeling of my body slowly beginning to shift. I could feel my skeleton attempting to morph under my skin. The beginnings of the transformation were finally starting to take hold.

Success.

"Now I've just... got to… maintain… it." The strain was clear in my voice.

I promptly passed out and fell on my face.

AN: Alright, updates are definitely going to slow down after this chapter. I've been playing it by ear so far, but it seems like I'll need to slow down and properly outline this story to organize my thoughts before I continue. As always, leave any and all feedback, criticisms, or questions. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this. Take care.