1 Reborn

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When I opened my eyes, I could only see white. It was an incredibly vast blank void.

- Hum... how boring - I muttered.

So, this is death? It's pretty... empty? Yes, and boring, and white. I'm honestly disappointed, not only by the way I died, but also by this absurd blank space. First, since when do I care enough about people to try to prioritize their lives over mine? Second, why the hell is this place so white? It's blinding me, and lastly, wasn't I supposed to watch my life flash before my eyes? I wanted to see my last minutes of life, the ones where I was drowning after saving a child from suffering that same fate. Heh... how ironic, to die drowning after saving someone from drowning. It's pretty stupid now that I think about it.

I hadn't noticed, but as I looked up I could see a black dot appear and start to expand more and more.

- It seems that they heard my complaints and will change the color - I said, watching the strange black thing encompass the whole place.

When everything finally turned black, a feeling of incomparable coldness began to run through my body.

Boy, it sure is cold on the other side.

A new feeling had developed inside me before I could fully realize the reason. It was a mixture of disgust and terror. I felt completely manhandled by something I couldn't see. It was as if I had become a fruit on display, and now I was being groped, turned this way and that, and squeezed by an old woman who wanted to know how good I was, and then not buying me and leaving me back where she picked me up to go on with her day, as if nothing had happened.

All right... this is worse than the cold....

The feeling of being groped went on, and on, no matter how hard I tried to squirm, it wouldn't stop, it was like I had been trapped, trying to move my limbs was completely difficult and the simple fact that I couldn't see anything made it worse. I wanted to scream, to beg the damn thing that was touching me to stop, but all I got was this: - Ahg! waah!" strange whimpering coming out of my mouth.

I squirmed, or tried to, for a few more minutes, until some time later the groping sensation was gone, which is a good start. Unfortunately, my satisfaction didn't last too long, as after a few seconds, I felt as if my body was being lifted somehow, followed by an incredible vertigo.

Minutes passed and the vertigo disappeared, replaced by an immense warmth.

My limbs felt numb and became almost impossible to move. I tried to blink, but my eyes felt weird, as if they were covered by something invisible, after a few more blinks, I realized something strange, my eyes were closed... which was weird, since I didn't remember closing them at any time, but I didn't give it importance and tried to lift my eyelids that for some reason felt heavy. A bright light filled my vision, which caused me to squint my eyes in discomfort.

Once my eyesight had adjusted to the light of the place, I looked around.

I was in some sort of wooden box, and if the feel of my body didn't deceive me, I was on something soft, possibly cotton. Above my box were a variety of figures made of wood, which were held in the air by thin, almost imperceptible threads. Finally, at one end, there was a stuffed doll that looked like a Chinese dragon.

- Waah!" another weird sound came out of my mouth.

Damn it, why the hell can't I talk? This is horrible. I want to scream, but only weird whimpers come out of my mouth. argh! How frustrating.

As I looked down at the dummy I realized something. My feet were incredibly small, and chubby, they looked like a baby's feet.

God... No...

I turned my head to look at my hands with concern. They were also small and fat. Then realization dawned on me.

I am a baby...

My thoughts were interrupted by two voices I had never heard before. They were speaking outside the range of vision that the box allowed me, so I could only listen. Unfortunately, they seemed to be speaking in some foreign language. I was absolutely certain it was Japanese, and I mentally thanked whatever deity was listening to me for having given me enough time in my life to learn Japanese, even if it was just to watch anime without subtitles....

I lay there, pondering my situation, and listening to the ongoing conversation near me. Out of everything I heard, only 3 things stood out. First, whoever was talking was a man and a woman, second, from what they were saying, the woman had recently given birth, so I assumed she was my mother, because I seriously doubt a stork would bring me, and lastly, the man, who I assumed was my father, sounded incredibly worried about the woman's health, although she tried to calm him down by telling him that it was normal to be weak after childbirth.

A few minutes later, I heard heavy footsteps approaching in my direction. I looked carefully at the top of what I assumed was my crib and waited anxiously for someone to appear.

A rather handsome man peeked over the edge of the crib and lifted me into his arms. He had short grayish hair, a "perfect" face, the kind you would find in a fashion magazine, there were 3 strange red marks on his face, one below each eye, near his cheekbones, and the last one on his chin.

It reminds me of someone, but I can't remember who....

Her eyes were bright light blue, and she had a tense expression.

I heard the woman speak from behind his back, she was telling him that if he kept looking at me like that it would make me freak out and start crying. It seemed that the woman's words calmed him down a bit, as his expression relaxed quite a bit. She then handed me over to the hands of someone else in the room. She was a beautiful woman, there is no other way to describe her. Long snow-white hair, lavender eyes, a face that looked like it was carved by the gods themselves, and a sweet, loving expression. She was cheerful, telling me that she was my mother and other things, but the most important thing was her name, it was Akio.

God... if I am really the son of these people, if I get even a small part of their beauty, I will be the happiest human being in the universe.

Akio snuggled me in his arms and covered me with a small blanket. I felt warm and safe in this woman's arms, I was also starting to feel sleepy.

Hum... I think I could get used to this.

Fast forward about 4 months.

While, during my life I had never believed in the theory of reincarnation before, sometimes I would watch some isekai anime with some friends, and we would talk about the things we would do if we went to one, but always from the humorous side of things, I never believed that something like this could actually happen, All my life I had believed that when a person died their conscience simply went black and that was it, they would only be worm food or whatever managed to get into your coffin first, if you managed to have one and not be cremated to reduce expenses. But in these two months I had accepted the fact that I was now a baby and was not having some kind of weird lucid dream produced by some experimental drug they were using on my body, I was in one of those famous fantasy worlds I had spent so many nights dreaming of entering and exploring.

As much as I would have liked to ask for a change of parent....

One of the things that helped confirm my theory that I had been reincarnated, was when out of nowhere my father decided it would be "fun" to throw me up in the air like some kind of toy.

I can feel giddiness and fear even as a baby, you know that, you ignorant bastard.

Putting aside my idiot father, who, by the way, is named Aoki, my life so far hasn't been that bad, well, it's not like a baby's life should be worrisome. Literally all I do in the day is wake up, eat, sleep, wake up to go to the bathroom, go back to sleep, wake up in the middle of the night to cry once in a while, and sleep once more.

Yes... that's the life I've always wanted.

Although to be honest, I'm grossed out by the idea that my only food for now is just breast milk, and that to go to the bathroom I have to relieve myself in a diaper, but I guess that will be until I learn to walk.

Some other things I realized in these months were:

First: So far I've seen few appliances from my era. Which leads me to believe that I am in a time before such things or that they are really expensive.

Second: My parents wear clothes worthy of feudal Japan, that, coupled with the design of our home, which is reminiscent of the typical Japanese house during that same era, leads me to believe that my father is some sort of samurai from that era, although I'm not entirely sure.

Third: My father has a large sword hanging in one of the rooms of our home. There are times when my mother takes me to a sort of practice room to watch him train. I must admit he's pretty good at it.

I wish he was as good at treating me gently....

Fourth: My parents seem to be quite popular in this place, as people come to visit them daily, sometimes they even bring delicious food, which, even though I can't eat it, I know it must taste amazing because of the smell and the expressions my parents make when they eat it.

Fifth and last: I am still puzzled as to why my father seems so familiar to me. I'm sure in my past life I saw him somewhere, or saw someone too much like him.

Another 8 months passed.

I was turning one year old, during all this time I had been practicing speech, and although I couldn't form complex sentences, I could say single things, like mama, dada, hungry, bathroom, etcetera, simple but useful things to a certain extent. I had also been learning to walk, which was pretty easy, to tell the truth, at least more so than speaking, since Japanese was not my mother tongue, I couldn't pronounce it quite right, but I was slowly managing to change that.

I knew that all those Japanese classes I went to with the sole purpose of learning enough to be able to watch anime without subtitles would do the trick.

From what I had learned so far, it seems that Aoki was some sort of "leader" for the village guards. The guards were 6 other guys who followed his orders without objection, to some extent they looked like androids, but when they were off duty they were regular people, there were even times when they came to visit to talk, eat, and even drink. You know, typical friend stuff. My mother on the other hand, didn't have an important position like my father's, she usually stayed home to take care of me, although that didn't mean she didn't have friends, since at least one came daily to visit and play with me.

- Hideki, dear, could you come here for a moment? - my mother's soft voice called to me from the kitchen.

That's another thing, apparently my name is Hideki, which, if I remember correctly, meant something like Excellent Trees, or something like that.

Ma'am, I'm supposed to be a child who just turned one year old, how do you think I could understand what you're saying to me? Even knowing this, I approached her to see what she needed.

My mother had not changed at all in this last year, she was as beautiful and kind as the first time I saw her. She was currently preparing a big meal because my father's friends were coming to visit, and he was getting things ready for us all to eat in the main room.

- Could you let your father know that the food will be ready? - he said, as he wiped his hands and stroked my head.

I just nodded and walked somewhat wobbly to the sliding door that led to the main room. Said room was big enough for about 20 people to fit in and still had plenty of room left over.

I approached my father, who was arranging the seating at a rather long table and made jerky motions with my arms to get his attention. It didn't seem to be working, so I opted for plan B. I reached up to his leg and started tugging at his pants.

- Hm? Oh, hi Hideki, is something wrong? - he asked, lifting me into his arms and sitting me on his shoulder.

After several reprimands from Mom and handcuffs from his classmates, Aoki finally started acting more gently. Or at least until I started walking, after that he tried to teach me how to use a sword....

- Mom, food please - I replied, pleased with myself for saying at least two things without getting stuck.

I still can't get used to the pronunciation, and it frustrates me because it reminds me of when I was learning English. I understood what I was being told, I knew how to respond, but I pronounced the words horribly and ended up understanding something else or nothing.

- Thank you for the warning, now go sit down, I'll help your mother bring the food - he said, lowering me from his shoulder and leaving me standing on the floor.

I nodded to him and went to find a place to sit down.

Come to think of it, is it normal for kids my age to understand what their parents say? Or will they still be at that point where they just laugh or cry about everything?

As I was lost in my thoughts, my father's classmates appeared out of nowhere, scaring me in the process.

- Sorry kid, could you tell us where Aoki-sama is? - asked one of my father's companions, in a monotone.

I stared at them for a few seconds. They all wore gray chest armor over a black shirt and with pants of the same color, as well as a belt tied a little above the knee. They had a metal guard on their arm, as well as gloves. In addition, they all wore swords on their backs, though not as long as father's, who usually wore it at the waist.

I recognize those outfits, but it can't be true....

- Well? - the subject asked again, in the same tone as before.

I never cared to know this guy's name, as I honestly wasn't interested, but I had a feeling he was in an incredible hurry, so I pointed in the direction of the kitchen, hoping that would be enough to tell him where my father was.

- Thank you," he said, and then he signaled to the others and they disappeared as if they had never been there.

The guy moved through the living room, to the sliding door that led to the kitchen and just walked in. Meanwhile, I was lost in thought.

That armor... it was Anbu armor... but it doesn't make sense, why on earth would they have Anbu armor? Since I doubt it was a cosplay of some sort. A non-being...

At that moment I could feel a light bulb go off above my head.

It all made sense now... Aoki's face, his markings... I had seen them before, on a Naruto character, if I remember correctly it was the second hokage, Tobirama Senju.

A lot of questions began to flood my mind, but there was one in particular that kept echoing in my head. How the hell did I end up in Naruto?

Okay, if being reincarnated was weird enough, being reincarnated as Naruto made it even weirder. Okay, I'll put everything I know so far in order. First, Aoki looks too much like Senju Tobirama to not be a close relative, but as far as I remember from the anime and manga, Tobirama's brothers were dead, except for Hashirama, but he dies before Tobirama, and I don't think anything was ever said about him having children... hum.... could it be that my appearance in this world changed things? But that wouldn't make sense, after all, things seem to have changed before I came along. So, could it be that this guy actually existed in Naruto's world, but for some reason it was never mentioned? That doesn't make sense either, since, if this guy had indeed existed, he would have been under Konoha's command.

- Argh! This is too complicated to think about - I complained.

Alright, I'll put this in a hypothetical case. Suppose I really am in Naruto's world and I really am the son of a Senju related to Tobirama, what am I supposed to do now, serve Konoha as a weapon, travel around the world and pretend I don't know anything about this?

My thoughts were interrupted by my father, who had come out of the kitchen looking incredibly tense, as he put on armor similar to that of his companions and arranged the sword he had always seen hanging in the room in a sheath at his waist. Following him, out came my mother with a worried face, and my father's companion.

For a few seconds my gaze and Aoki's crossed, and he stood still, it was as if he was afraid of something. When he finally moved again, he came over to me and hugged me.

To be honest, this is weird. My father of this world was always affectionate with me and Akio, but he never hugged us, it was always playing or stroking my head, and with my mother it was always a kiss or something else, but the hugging thing was new.

- Hideki, son, daddy has some business to take care of, when he comes back we'll all eat together, ok? - he murmured in my ear.

This reminds me of the typical scene where a man makes a promise to return to his family and then dies fighting for X reason. Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to give him a little encouragement in his possible fight.

- It's you... but Dad - I said, hugging him tighter. I wish I could say more, but this is all I can manage at the moment.

With one last hug, we parted and he handed me into my mother's arms. Then he left with his companions.

- Son, do you want something to eat until your father returns?

I shook my head and headed to the room I shared with my parents to put all the new information in order.

Once I got to the room, I lay down on my parents' bed and started thinking.

All right, let's get things organized. I drowned trying to save a child, then I was reincarnated as Naruto, and now I'm the son of a Senju who is almost identical to Tobirama. I'm in a town that obviously isn't Konoha, otherwise I'd be absolutely sure there would be people licking my shoes for being a Senju. So, where am I? The Anbu I saw earlier didn't have the typical Konoha headband, or anything resembling the leaf symbol, though they didn't have symbols of other villages either now that I think about it....

- This is getting troublesome - I sighed.

After spending 15 minutes getting my thoughts in order, I got off the bed and stood up. I wanted to look for something interesting to keep me entertained.

- Who knows, maybe I'll find one of those typical jutsu scrolls and I can learn something while I'm still a kid - I muttered, while searching with my eyes.

Okay, now let's see if I find anything interesting around here.

I began my inspection of the place, first looking in the most accessible places for a one year old. Under the bed.

I crawled under my parents' bed, looking for anything interesting or typical of the Naruto world, such as shurikens, kunais or scrolls, a training sword, maybe a smoke bomb, or something I could use now to entertain myself.

Unfortunately, I found nothing but clothes and some sandals.

Come to think of it, I always found it odd that Naruto characters wore sandals? What aren't they louder than regular shoes...hum...I'll leave that aside for the moment, I'd better get on with plan B, the closets.

I went over to my parents' closet and tried to open it, but it was too high for me to reach, and my fingers were too weak to try to open it from the bottom. So I resigned myself to continuing to search the floors or somewhere I could reach.

About 10 minutes of searching later, I ended up finding a scroll under my crib. Honestly it seemed like a good place to hide something like that, after all, who would look for a scroll under a child's crib? So I pulled it out, with some difficulty, as the cradle almost fell on my head, but that doesn't matter now. The scroll was about the size of my arm, which isn't too much considering I'm still a kid, it was dark blue, and had the kanji for water on it. It also looked pretty old.

The perfect stereotype of a scroll that talks about chakra or jutsu.

- Alright, let's see what it says inside - I muttered, unfolding it with an eagerness for knowledge.

The first thing I saw was a drawing of chakra nets and a short explanation.

Chakra is the vital energy of the body, which is essential for any jutsu, even the most basic, it is a mixture of the physical energy present in every cell of the body of the living being and the spiritual energy acquired with exercise and experience. Once blended, it can be channeled through the chakra circulatory system, which is like the blood circulatory system, but with chakra, to any of the 361 Tenketsu in the body.

- Hideki, son, where are you?" my mother's voice called to me from outside the room.

A few seconds later, she came in, with some concern plastered on her face. When she saw me on the floor, with the parchment open and my hands on it, her expression turned to confusion and then became completely neutral. It was the first time I saw Akio with that face and honestly it caused me some fear, I felt that something bad was about to happen to me.

- Son, what are you doing playing with mom's things? - he asked, still with his face completely expressionless.

I ducked my head, expecting a reprimand or punishment.

- If you wanted me to read something to you you should have told me, not sneak into the room and turn everything into a mess - he sighed.

I took a few seconds to look around and realize that he wasn't reprimanding me for taking the parchment, but for turning the room into a mess.

I scratched my head in shame for what I had done.

Quick, make an excuse!

- Boring, me read - I said, slapping the parchment open with my hand, and hoping it would fall for the deception.

- Oh, so you want to read that parchment.

I nodded, satisfied that it would fall.

- But son, a scroll is not for children, don't you want me to read you a better story?

I shook my head fervently.

- Okay, but you must promise me that whenever you want to read something you must come and ask my permission first, is that clear?

I nodded again, and stretched out my arms for her to pick me up off the floor. My mother came over and rolled up the parchment, then picked me up and carried me into the main room, where we sat on a small couch we had. She sat me on her lap and opened the scroll.

- All right, let's get started.

I paid full attention to mother's soft voice as she began to tell me the story of an absolutely fearless shinobi.

After an hour, Akio had finished reading me a very interesting story, about a ninja called Naruto, who never gave up and wanted to break the chain of hate... I must admit that I never believed that someone would read me the only non-pornographic book written by Jiraiya.

- Well son, that's all for today, tomorrow we continue - said my mother, getting me off her lap.

It was quite entertaining, to tell the truth, I would read it again some other time. But the scroll didn't say anything about that! She took advantage thinking I wouldn't know how to read and told me a story trying to make me believe it was what the scroll said. Tch, clever woman....

I went out to the backyard looking for something interesting to do, but unfortunately there was nothing, not even a branch to practice the moves I saw Aoki use.

Hm... should I start doing physical training? Like the typical isekai protagonist who is reborn and wants to stop being a total useless to something less useless, and who magically ends up falling in love with a large number of women and since he's an idiot he can't choose one and is left with a Harem because the script decided so... yeah... I think I need friends to talk to, instead of having such long mental dialogues....

- What's wrong son? - said a voice suddenly, making me startle and lose my balance, thus falling to the ground.

Looking up, I could see my father looking at me with an amused expression on his face.

Son of a b...

The curse I was about to think about was interrupted by Aoki, who decided it would be a good idea to pick me up off the ground and crush me in a hug like some kind of stuffed animal.

My father's big muscles were not letting me breathe and I could already feel myself being sent back into that white void I was already in once.

- Honey, you'll knock the wind out of him - my mother's voice came to my rescue.

Mother, help! This savage is trying to kill me!

To my misfortune, and mother's, she too was caught between daddy's strong arms and now we were both being crushed by his muscles.

- s... st... Stop it - Akio tried to say, in vain, as Aoki couldn't hear.

Just as I was about to pass out from lack of oxygen, I could see mother raising her fist, as a blue aura surrounded it.

What the hell is that?

A few seconds later, I could hear Akio let out a loud scream as he punched father in the ribs.

After that Aoki flew into one of the trees in the courtyard and embedded himself in it. And you may be wondering, what happened to the innocent child who was being crushed? Well, the answer is easy, he also flew away, but being smaller and less heavy than the adult, he flew several meters through the air.

- Damn you both! If I die, I want you to know that you're both big assholes! - I shouted, or tried to, as the strong winds made my words nothing more than an annoying noise.

I could feel as if I was about to remember something.

Oh, now I'm going to have to see my damn life flash before my eyes, when I've only been alive for a year! May God or whoever is in charge of writing this!

As I flew through the air, I could see the entire town, along with a beautiful sunset in the background.

It's beautiful... *sigh* I guess I'll die with nice views at least.

I closed my eyes waiting for my end, as I could hear my mother's screams from afar.

- I hope they live knowing this was both of their fault - I sighed.

- Did you say something?

I looked to my right, searching for the owner of the voice, and I could see Aoki, with a stupid grin plastered on his face, holding me in the air as if we weren't several meters off the ground.

- Hold on tight, the descent is the scariest part.

Without a second thought, I curled into a ball, while holding on as tightly as I could to his shirt. Then I began to feel us falling rapidly. It was a horrible feeling, comparable to when you find yourself on the ride down a big roller coaster. I didn't want to open my eyes for fear that the last thing I would see was the ground we would both crash into.

- Well, that was fun, don't you think?

...Huh?

I opened my eyes to find to my surprise that we were standing on a small platform made of water that was slowly descending to the ground.

What? How? When?

- Son! - my mother shouted, pulling me out of Aoki's arms once we were on the ground.

Once she had me in her arms, she started hugging me like my father just a few moments ago.

Well, I guess this is better than flying through the air like a rag doll.

- Um... sweetie...

Father's words were interrupted by an incredibly terrifying look from Akio. That look contained a great level of anger, so much so that my father cowered in fear and backed away cautiously.

Hey, don't look at him like that, you're the one who sent me flying through the skies.

When my mother saw this, she dropped her terrified gaze and looked at me with concern. She then spent about 15 minutes looking me up and down, touching my limbs looking for any damage caused by what I assume was magic. When she was satisfied, she let me down on the floor.

- Son, dear, could you go inside for a while? Mommy and Daddy need to have a serious talk," she said, with a sweet smile on her face, which gave me chills.

I looked at Aoki pityingly for a moment and then walked in the direction of the house, all the while ignoring the look of pleading and betrayal in my father's eyes.

Sorry champ, if I have to choose between you and me, I'd rather it be you.

Well into the night, loud screams could be heard of a poor man being viciously beaten by his angry wife.