Chapter 3: Figuring it out
3 months later.
We now see a slightly bigger baby playing with other kids. He has a block in his hand as he tries to make words out of it. The baby is also trying to look happy and cheerful, but it was only scary to his playmates as it wasn't natural.
In the head of the little schemer.
Man am I thankful for Zen Mode otherwise I'm pretty sure I would have just been a mess, I wonder if there are any side effects though...
Ah welp, something to worry In the future, so there is some good news and bad news. The good news is that I think I can turn off my now dubbed " Zen" mode, which has some nifty perks like calming me and making my thoughts clearer. The bad news is that when I tried to turn it off something inside me screamed not to...not sketchy at all.
Moving on, it seems like that dying left its perks too. I never noticed it but everything around me is in English for some reason. I have no idea why though, maybe I'll look into it later.
So anyway thanks to that, I can essentially act my way through my life, how you ask?
Well, it's kinda like controlling a game character in a sense, I don't feel much of anything from outside stimuli like pain and hunger but that also goes for emotions too.
It's really strange too and I hope it won't come back to haunt me in the future.
And it's kind of difficult to maintain an expression for long though, it starts to take a strain on me which affects my face.
The baby tries another expression leaving the kids even more terrified and even making one of them cry. However, the baby was still deep in thought as it didn't notice anything.
Anyway, after that I figured out it was a Naruto world, my goal right now has been trying to sense chakra, which is not going well at all.
But I did sense something the other day so I might be on to something.
Oh and also another "Zen" perk is that I can like meditate quickly now, which helps me a lot if chakra sensing is anything I think it is.
Though I'm not gonna lie, I don't have much going on for me.
I'm pretty much useless right now and in the future. I can't train in fear of getting snatched by somebody and if I don't train I'm pretty sure it would be a quick life here. Which is difficult, but I'm managing somehow.
"WAAH WAAHH WAAH"
God damn it, isn't there usually something like a cheat or a system to help me? I didn't sign up for this.
Well at least everyone speaks English.
Imagine trying to learn Japanese with everything going on around me, yikes.
So right now I have to train in my chakra a little to get a sense of it.
And another thing is that I have to stand out or just be memorable enough to be remembered but with doing so by being average. Which is a bit of an oxymoron itself but that's my only option.
I can't share my future knowledge though, no matter how much I want to. The canon has to be preserved even If I'm here now.
Besides, I have this sense that everything is...fated I guess. And that. even if I make a tiny ripple in the ocean, it wouldn't matter because of how gigantic it is.
I have no idea where this is coming from though, but giving out canon knowledge is just going to be the end of me unless I grow sufficiently strong enough to protect myself.
Knowledge is power and boy do I have it.
So my "cheats" or advantages are that I have
-Future knowledge or just knowledge in general
-Memories from my past life
-Zen mode
-This sixth sense of like destiny?
"Ah what happened here, oh there there" The caretaker comes and consoles the baby who was crying to high heaven. "What happened little guy?"
Not looking good but not too shabby either. I just have to use my cards well if I wanna make it somewhere.
So I have to continue "training" my chakra in hopes that no one notices and just be average. I can do that... at least I hope.
Anyway, what's happeni-eh.
"Ah Hiro, stop scaring the other kids, play nice okay?" The caretaker says as she lifts me.
'Man I hate being tiny'
Two Years Later
Woooo boy, how quickly time passes...not
Like Jesus, why is it so slow? Is it because I'm a baby again? Or is it the mind numbing training.
Yeah, probably a combination of those two but still, it's mind-boggling how slow everything is.
Speaking of mind boggling, I figured out that kids mature faster here, way faster than on Earth. They're already running around now and they're like 2 or 3 at most.
And by running, I don't mean in like a wobbly fast walking no no no, I mean like a full-blown sprint.
Maybe my knowledge of babies isn't up to date but whatever.
The good news is that, I have chakra now, well I can sense it and kind of use it so it still counts. One small step for me and one leap for the future me.
You are probably wondering what's happening outside right now, well let's see, shall we.
"You're weird, c'mon guys lets go somewhere else"
"Yeah, let's play shinobi. I pick good shinobi!"
"Hey no fair, I'm good shinobi"
A group of kids is shunning a single boy as they run off somewhere else. The lonely child goes back to playing alone.
'Now you may be thinking 'Hey what happened to being normal and likable?' to that I answer that kid isn't me. I was actually the one who said let's go play shinobi.'
That kid was the titular character, drumroll, please...Naruto.
Yeah, it's shocking I know, The golden boy came here half a month ago.
To say I was dumbfounded would be an understatement. I thought he was being raised by the ANBU or Hiruzen but he came here now. He's probably like 2 or 3 now and even now I can see the prejudice people have against him.
"Ha catch me if you can, I'm the fastest shinobi in Konoha"
"No fair Hiro, you're too fast"
I saw it in how people look at him, with hatred or cold indifference, sure the staff here try to be fair and treat him like everyone else but they still had that look in their eye even if they tried to hid it.
Sometimes there wouldn't be enough meals or certain someone's clothes had some wear and tear in them that should be easy to fix.
I mean there wasn't anything physical like beatings but all the little things, habits sort of. Like how they would scowl a little when they look at him or how their voice would be just a little higher when they scolded him.
Anything adults themselves wouldn't notice but the little cretins would. Smart little buggers when they want to be, or just very impressionable.
So that's how Naruto got left out of playtime. It was surprisingly fast on how they did it, guess that's life.
As for me, I integrated seamlessly into this little society, the perfect sidekick, not the one who would lead others but the one who's always in the background. Silently guiding the kids around me in a subtle way.
That sounds way cooler in my head but all I do is make a suggestion to someone and let them say it. Thanks to that, when people think of athletic and strong kids with leadership qualities, I would be around the 4th or 5th in their minds.
I noticed that some kids would silently disappear without a trace, the staff would say they got adopted but I feared the worse. That becomes a motivation that keeps me going. It's hard to imagine the threat of Pain and Kaguya when it feels so unreal, but the kids silently going missing is real and closer than I would like it to be.
"Hah- hah- you're fast Hiro, but I'm still faster than you -hah"
" Hah- hah- C'mon Katsuki, hah- I'm almost faster than you - hah- now"
So I've been training myself in secret, trying to get kids around me to play more things that would need physical extortion like running and jumping.
My chakra training is going nicely too, I would meditate in silence at night and pretend I'm sleeping. Though I have been more careful since Naruto came here, because Naruto means Kurama and that means the ANBU and Hiruzen's surveillance. But unless they have a Sharingan user or a Byakugan user, which I doubt, I should be fine.
"What do you guys wanna do now?"
"I'm gonna go climb trees, the one who climbs the highest gets to be the strongest shinobi!"
"Hey no fair Hiro, you're already there"
"Losers weepers hahaha"
The last thing I want to mention is that acting like a kid is tiring, acting like a hyperactive kid even more so. But I have to do all I can now to survive.
And speaking of surviving, I have a little experiment I'm going to do tonight. Something hopefully I can do now.
"Come down now boys, it's lunchtime"
"Luuunch"
"Its lunch already?"
"The last one there is a rotten egg!"
"No fair"
Like I said, extremely tiring.
"Ok here I go"
I say out loud to myself In the bathroom after dinner. Normally it's nothing too scary but somehow everything now looks a bit more spooky considering what I'm about to do. My whole body is screaming out saying no but I have to do this.
Breath in. Breath out. You can do this.
Zen mode. OFF
Painpainapaindarknesssufferingpainpainabysscoldcoldcoldabyssdarknesspain-AHHHHHHHHFUCKpaindarknkessssassufferingabyssssabsyssmakeitstopmakeitsto-
Zen mode. ON
After wheezing and gasping for a minute or so, my body returns to normal. Blood is dripping down my forehead, reminding me of what just happened. I can still see my face writhing in agony in the now broken mirror.
Turning off Zen mode is a bad idea, I can still feel the phantom pain and agony from the realization that I'm dead now.
I can never see my parents again, any of my friends, my old life is gone. That I'm now in a global race to stay alive as everyone out there is going to kill me or torture me for information.
…
…
I guess I never realized-oh I knew it and I was just putting it off. It's easier to pretend it's not my problem when I'm looking at it from an outsider's perspective. It gave me that safe space and I knew that deep down something like this would happen If I pushed that space.
"Guess that's another thing on the list, face my mortality hah".
My vision is dyed in a red tint, guess that blow really hit me, Hah.
I can see my blank face in the broken mirror with blood still dripping. I sigh and think of cleaning this mess. Hmm, what's that in my eye-
And there, my body froze like a deer caught in a headlight, my mind still computing everything, to see if it's actually real.
At that moment, I knew what to do, what I could do. This was my big break.
I wanted to laugh out loud and scream in delight but I knew after my little "incident" people were getting curious. So I could only afford a voiceless chuckle.
The reason why?
Well staring at me was a blood-red eye with two tomoe and a crazy smile.
Then I blacked out.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Modsan
Modsan It's been 2 or 3 years...yikes
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