I died choking on instant noodles.
No prophecy. No truck. No blinding white light.
Just sodium, panic, and the deeply humiliating realization that this was how my life ended—alone, in a rented room, with an anime paused mid-fight because I'd leaned forward too fast.
My last coherent thought was:
Wow. I don't even get a cool death.
Then the world rebooted.
---
I woke up screaming.
Which would've been dramatic if my lungs weren't the size of walnuts.
Sound came out wrong—thin, wet, desperate. My vision was blurry, colors smeared like bad watercolor. Something warm wrapped around me. A smell hit my nose: blood, sweat, smoke.
Not hospital-clean. Not modern.
Oh no.
I tried to move. Failed.
I tried to think. Worse.
My brain felt like it had been poured into a smaller container without asking permission. Thoughts slipped. Memories stuttered.
But one thing landed clearly, horrifyingly, in place:
A symbol stitched into fabric.
A leaf.
Not a metaphorical leaf. Not a vague plant-like shape.
That leaf.
The Hidden Leaf Village.
Konoha.
I would've fainted, but apparently newborns don't get that luxury.
---
Time passed weirdly after that.
Days blurred into hunger, warmth, crying, and the creeping terror of recognition. I learned the sounds of this world before the language—wooden floors, paper doors, distant explosions that no one reacted to.
No one said chakra out loud at first.
That came later.
When it did, it hit me harder than the realization that I was stuck in a baby body.
Because babies grow up.
And in this world, growing up meant weapons.
---
I was named Shin Arai.
No clan. No compound. No suspicious last name that made adults whisper.
My mother died two days after childbirth.
My father was already dead.
This should have been tragic.
Instead, my first real emotion was relief.
Good. No one to disappoint.
---
By age three, I confirmed the worst.
I had chakra.
Everyone did.
That didn't mean anything.
It wasn't a gift—it was a requirement. Like lungs. Like blood. Like the expectation that, if things went badly enough, you'd be asked to stab someone for the village.
I tried molding chakra once.
Once.
I passed out, pissed myself, and woke up with a headache so bad I threw up on a medic-nin.
She laughed.
"You'll get used to it."
That was the moment I understood something important.
This world was insane.
And I was very, very weak.
---
At night, when the village quieted and distant screams stopped meaning anything specific, I made a decision.
I would not be a hero.
I would not be a villain.
I would not chase destiny, power, or tragic backstories.
I would survive.
Quietly.
If that meant lying, cheating, hiding, or letting better people die first—
…I would live with it.
The Naruto world didn't reward bravery.
It rewarded the people who lived long enough to regret things.
And I was very good at regret.