UPDATE: As of April 2, 2019, I have made revisions to the first three chapters, and am working on the fourth. Yes, after two whole years, this fic is updating again.

Heliocentrism

Prologue – A Protagonist is You

In which our tale begins, even if it is not quite the actual beginning.

Being a shinobi, in all honesty, simply meant that you could tell common sense to fuck off, and common sense would listen. Most shinobi could laugh in the face of gravity by the time they hit puberty and had the poor law of conservation of energy sobbing in a corner by the time they hit their prime. Go even higher on the power scale, and you got shinobi who could twist the laws of the universe into squeaky balloon animals. At the truly absurd end of the scale, even death itself became nothing more than a hapless telemarketer who could be dismissed at will with a simple 'ignore call'.

Incredible, reality warping power came at a steep price though. That price was usually any sense of self-preservation, morality, reason, reasonableness, or general mental wellness.

In a nutshell, a shinobi's strength was directly proportional to their level of batshit craziness. Puny human brains simply weren't designed for superhuman feats, so sanity and godlike powers were mutually exclusive long-term investments.

Namikaze Minato was just a tad stronger than most shinobi.

It logically followed that he would be just a tad crazier too.

. . .

Fukui Toko had not set foot outside Konoha's walls in decades, yet she still had a more accurate grasp of the state of Fire Country than most active shinobi.

She was the matron of the village's largest orphanage, and her kids came from everywhere, from children of shinobi killed in action to refugees evacuated from the turbulent Iwa border. Her children were far easier to read than the heavily censored news that filtered through a shinobi village – she could find the truth in the hollowness of their cheeks and hear it in the cries of their nightmares. The cruelty of the world beyond the safety of Konoha's walls didn't surprise her.

The resilience of the children who survived it, however, never failed to catch her off guard. They always came to her a little offbeat, a little odd, but Toko had learned to take it all in stride.

The young boy currently sitting in the middle of the playroom was a little odder than most. He was a very quiet child, with loud dandelion blond hair and strikingly blue eyes that would probably break hearts left and right once he grew up. It was the third day in row he had spent hours just sitting in the middle of the playroom, repeating the same series of motions over, and over, and over again.

The boy had an old picture book that some kind soul had donated to the orphanage balanced across his lap. He opened it, glanced at the title page, and then closed it. (Your INT has risen.) He then opened it again, glanced down at the title page again, and then closed it once more. (Your INT has risen.) Again. (Your INT has risen.) And Again. (Your INT has risen.) And Again. (Your INT has risen.) His dedication had long since left the territory of childish stubbornness and barreled into the realm of worrying obsession.

Deciding it was past time for an intervention, Toko knelt down next to the boy and asked kindly, "Would you like me to read that out loud for you?"

The boy shook his head, his bright hair catching the light in all directions like a sunburst. He continued opening and closing the book without peeling his eyes away from it for even a second.

"Well, would you like to read it out loud for me then? (New Quest! Regale Fukui-san with 'Adventures of the Fluffy Bunny'! Accept | Cancel )" Toko offered instead, hoping to appeal to the fierce self-sufficient streak she saw all too often in orphans.

This inquiry gave the boy pause. His head tilted slightly to the side in a contemplative pose before his face finally broke into a shy smile and he gave Toko a small nod. (Accept | Cancel )

He softly cleared his throat and held the book out in front of himself as far as his little arms could reach so that she could see the pictures too when he started reading. It was a simple book – each full-page illustration was accompanied by only a simple sentence - but Toko was impressed with the boy's fluency all the same. Many civilian orphans never became literate, and certainly never at such a young age.

When the boy finished (Quest complete! +10 Reputation with Konoha!) (Your INT has risen.), Toko could have sworn she heard a soft chime in the back of her mind (-Ding- Your INT increases to 41!) and the boy's bright blue eyes almost seemed to glow even brighter. It was an off-putting sensation, as if she had just missed something very important, but it was also a feeling Toko knew well.

It wouldn't be the first time a child like this had passed through Konoha Orphanage. Fukui Toko had seen a lot of children come and go, and she trusted what her gut was telling her about this one.

Toko very gently patted the boy's head.

"You're Minato-kun, right?"

"Namikaze Minato," he repeated with a nod, and there was an odd tilt to his smile that Toko couldn't quite read.

It was only one of many things about Namikaze Minato that she would never quite figure out, Toko suspected. Children like this – who said little but thought much – were ill-suited to the humdrum of the orphanage, or even the peacefulness of a civilian life.

She scrubbed her fingers through his soft, sunshine blond hair and made up her mind.

"Minato-kun, how do you feel about becoming a shinobi?"

(Prologue Complete!)
(New Quest! Become an Academy Student!)
(New Area Unlocked: Konoha Academy!)
(Now Loading...)

. . .

Author's Note:

There are already plenty of Gamer!Naruto stories out there that are written by authors a helluva lot more talented than I am, so I decided to try something different by picking someone else to dump all the video game shenanigans on, and play around a little with the point of view and overall plot structure.

Let's just say that this is not a story about Minato getting ridiculously strong (although he does do that), and more a story about the insanity that would ensue if he did, in fact, behave like a video game character.

The entire thing is outlined; we should be done in 15 chapters or so - which is a blatant lie because I always grossly underestimate these things - so hold onto your hats, because here we go!

(Also, I'm in rather dire need of a beta reader with the patience of a saint. Any one up for it?)