A/N 2020-06-11

So yeah, no new chapter, sorry. Instead we get a much needed rewrite of this and pretty much all chapters leading up to chapter 8. Now that I have a much more solid idea of who I want the characters to be and what path I want the story to follow, I decided this needed to happen. Not to mention that my writing is at least somewhat better than it had been when this started. That said, I'm still doing this without a beta so mistakes are bound to find their way into each chapter, rewrite or not. Anywho, I hope you guys find this to be a better offering than the original first chapter. I plan of having the second chapter rewrite done sometime next week. And hopefully I can keep that schedule up till I finish them all.

I hope you enjoy it!

"You can be a King or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the Grim Reaper" - Robert Alton Harris

There are many questions about what happens when we die. Is there an afterlife? A heaven and hell? Maybe, I know reincarnation is definitely a thing, but we'll get to that in a moment.

I don't really remember dying per se, more like quick flashes here and there of a firefight, running, ducking, shooting, screaming, the unmistakable sound of ripping paper which signaled an RPG, an explosion, and then nothing.

Just the void.

I've worked out in the years since that I may have caught a piece of shrapnel from the RPG or some shithead got a lucky shot off while I was dazed, either way, I was dead.

Now on to the reincarnation.

It was weird at first, like you're floating in pure darkness, and then a feeling of being pulled, pushed, and the excruciating pain.

I can remember trying to scream but not really being able to hear anything. Then boom! Blinding light. Next thing I new, I could hear my attempts to scream. Awesome right? Means I'm not dead, only one tinsy winsy little problem though.

It didn't sound anything like me.

I tried to open my eyes so i could at least find out where I was but as it turns out, babies eyes aren't that great, not that I knew I was a baby at the time but that's beside the point.

I kept hearing a feminine voice say Takezo over and over again which definitely wasn't a word I was familiar with seeing as it didn't exist in the English language as I knew it.

This of course led to a minor moment of panic, seeing as the last thing I could remember was being in a gunfight. My biggest fear was that I'd been captured. However that thought quickly dissappeared as I started to try and calm down and actually pay attention to the sounds the unknown people around me were making.

Definitely not English, but not Pashtu, Arabic, or any other language that was common in the area I'd last remembered being in. Sounded more like an eastern asian language really. Not being a linguist, I couldn't really be sure with out being able to see anything.

I tried to move or talk to try and get someone's attention but my body absolutely refused to respond.

Oh fuck.

I must've been in a coma and everything had atrophied to the point where I couldn't use them! I thought in another moment of panic.

This belief thankfully however, vanished as I soon figured out through the haze that was my vision that I was being picked up and carried very easily.

Now to put this in sone context, when I died I was around five foot eleven and about two-hundred and twenty pounds. So even if I'd lost the muscle and fat, I could not have been that damb easy to lug around due to my length.

Unless I was a quad amputee.

Before you ask. Yes this caused even more panic and more crying.

Eventually, for better of for worse my eyes started to actually work after a couple of weeks.

At least I think it was. Couldn't really keep track of time.

Turns out, I'm a baby again.

Cool...

On one hand, I had in fact died. So, that sucked. On the other hand, I had got a second chance so I did something right to someone and some higher power decided I wasn't done living yet, so, yay for not being a complete trash human being.

Now I needed to figure out where and when I was.

My parents had taken me out on a walk around the town where we were living. I studied the buildings and people as intensely as a baby with no motor function to speak of can, and I was quickly coming to the conclusion that I was somewhere both terrifying and awesome at the same time.

The thing is, my family, the old one that is, had a weird ability to memorize and recite movies and TV shows to the point where myself, my dad, and my grandfather could have full conversations in nothing more than quotes from said media.

I was also a fan of anime and manga, Japanese cartoons and comics, one in particular was my favorite. Naruto. I had practically the whole universe memorized, and now as a baby I was looking at one of the most recognizable things in said universe.

The Hokage monument. Hard to miss faces carved into the side of a mountain like Mount Rushmore.

Turns out that I cry a lot as a baby. Though, I will say that I feel justified for this one.

I mean, like I said, this was equal parts awesome and terrifying. It was awesome because, well superpowers. Super strength, speed, stamina, and wielding the power of elements to fight people. All the things a kid could dream of right?

It was also terrifying because I knew what was coming, and it was not even remotely close to good.

So after about a minute or two of crying and flailing about which my parents did their best not to panic at the sheer randomness of my outburst and to placate me until I finally started to calm down.

I had been a god damned death dealer in my past life. Cool under fire and all that. Well, other than the whole pissing myself and terrified screaming the first time I was shot at.

Focus dammit!

I need to figure out what time period I was in. Maybe I'd missed the war. Looking up at the monument I saw three faces, so no.

Ok so clearly before the ascension of Minato Namikaze otherwise known as the Fourth Hokage, so I at least had a rough idea of the when now, that was good.

OK so conflict is clearly in my future, that's cool. I mean, clearly I was going to go and become a shinobi, no brainer there. Possible death or not, I wasn't going to pass up a chance at super powers, and I really couldn't think of a better way to gather more information about who was alive and who wasn't at the moment. So for now I'd plan and I'd attempt to figure out how to access my chakra.

I am not above using my previous knowledge of this world to my advantage. Besides, accessing ones chakra can't be too difficult after all.

I knew that I'd likely been born inside the Hidden Leaf Village proper as it hadn't been that far of a walk before I'd caught sight of the monument, which meant I had a good chance of being born to shinobi parents, which meant I'd have access to chakra, unless I ended up like Rock Lee and had malformed chakra coils.

That'd really put a damper on my plans. I don't think I could muster the self dicipline or determination to make being a ninja work without it.

Anywho, all my infantile attempts at accessing my chakra while my parents carried me around the village ended in failure. I cold feel it sure. Kinda had a feeling similar to the one you get when you down a spoon full of warm soup, but getting it to actually do anything was a no go for now.

Oh hey cool, we're home now. But why is there a fan painted on our door?

...

...

Fuck.

A fucking Uchiha.

I suppose it made sense the more I looked at my parents. My mom had very soft facial features and long black hair with bangs covering half of her face and rounded onxy eyes. Dad had the sharper, almost elongated features that were reminiscent of Itachi and Fugaku, his dark brown hair styled in something akin to a high and tight with far more almond shaped eyes.

Yet again, very cool. The Sharingan was probably the most hax level ability in this universe save for the Flying Thunder God Technique, and it was a given that most Uchiha's were naturals when it came to anything shinobi related.

Except Obito apparently.

Then again, he had made Chunin by the time he was twelve. Eh, we'll figure out whether or not I'm a prodigy or not later.

But yeah, these were good things offset by the fact that unless I got real strong real fast I would likely be dead before I was into my mid twenties when Itachi would be ordered to wipe out the clan.

Maybe if I planned right and had gained enough strength then I might be able to prevent it and if not then at least be able to fight him off long enough to survive.

I wasn't putting any stock in actually being able to kill him, that's just not gonna be a thing. But if you make enough noise, someone is gonna notice.

But for now I couldn't try to focus on that, no for now I would have to wait and play the part of a child.

I'll admit I have no Idea how any of us make it through childhood in the first place, especially the infant and toddlers ages, not being able to move or communicate was damn near maddening enough to make me consider trying to toddle my way off the stairs.

So I put all my effort into those first. I picked it all up rather quickly thankfully, possibly due to my brains old memories and that Uchihas are, like.I said before, gifted naturals at pretty much everything. I was making normal baby sounds by five months, actual words by a year, short sentences by a year and a half, and full on conversations by two.

I'd picked up walking around the time I was a year and a half old after much trial, error, and pain, and was actually mostly stable by two. My mother, Hitomi, was so delighted when I started talking, I don't think I'd ever seen someone that excited before, even counting my old life.

As soon as I'd said 'mama' she squealed and lifted me up cheering, saying she was so proud of her little Takezo and swinging me around in her arms, which did not sit well with my toddler stomach and resulted in me vomiting all over her which made her laugh even more.

Mom's are weird.

My father, Kaito, on the other hand had much the same reaction when I happened to walk into the living room and grab him for something. It hadn't occurred to me that neither of them had seen me walk and that, as a toddler this was a big thing.

While all this was happening I'd been working on trying to access my chakra, I'd found I had a nack for sensing as I could always track my parents if they were in the house.

Really the extent of my range but still, they were shinobi so actually finding them, even if they weren't trying to hide was much more difficult than most people realize.

When a shinobi takes a step, they dont make a sound, a necessity for shinobi who are interested in continuing their status as living beings, but incredibly annoying for a child who isn't exactly fond of surprises.

I kept working diligently on my chakra to help build my reserves but also try and gain some semblence of control, on top of that I also took up reading on any and all subjects that I thought may be of use in the profession I chose to pursue. History, (what little there was that had been written that is) culture, literature, and most importantly, chakra theory in reference to application of ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, Fuinjutsu, ect.

My past life's introverted tendencies came back with a vengence at this point. Great for trying to grasp all possible shinobi knowledge, but not so great for playing with other kids. Normally this would probably cause some serious social stunting but I figured I could skip it this time around since I'd already done so once.

Of course, all of this studying and what not did not go unnoticed by my parents.

So I suppose when I was about four and a half I decided to finally ask my parents about enrolling me into the Village's Academy, they weren't all that surprised.

I remember finding my dad in the evening while mom had already gone to bed, he'd just returned from some long term mission and was writting up his teams report.

He was sitting at the dining room table when I came in, he looked up from the stack of papers and gave me a tired smile.

"Takezo, what brings you down here?" He asked, trying his best to sound like the parent that always has time for their kid regardless of how exhausted they may be.

I really did get lucky with my family.

That said, I was definitely nervous. I wanted to be a shinobi but at the same time, a parents worst nightmare was to lose a child, and there was a good chance of that happening in this line of work.

In my last life, both my parents had served in the military and had been proud when i signed those recruitment papers, it wasn't until much later though that I'd learn just how scared they'd actually been when I chose to go combat arms overy a cushy rear echelon one.

Sometimes, I'd occasionly wonder how they were doing.

Probably not well, a divorce had already happened and relationships were strained at best for most of my immediate family.

I shook the thought, it wasn't going to help here.

Deep breath. Ok here goes.

"Dad. I want to be a shinobi." I said softy.

He didn't say anything while fixing me with a gaze filled with an intensity I'd never seen from him., The shear weight behind it was almost enough to make me start to squirm in place.

I didn't realize it at the time, but the old man had let out a subtle amount of his killing intent to test me.

But I'd faced down everything from asking someone I loved to marry me, the angry and violent wildlife of Alaska and close and intense firefights and IEDs in the scorching sun of the Middle East.

If I could handle all that in a past life, then dammit I could handle the heavy and questioning gaze my old man was handing me in this one. Killing intent or not.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity he closed his eyes in thought. I searched every inch of his being trying to get a read on what he was thinking through his body language. But the old man wasn't a Jonin for nothing, and like any good Jonin.

He gave me absolutely nothing to work with.

"Are you sure about this?" He asked, his eyes finally opening up but with a tone as hard as stone.

I willed every bit of determination and resolve into my own gaze as it met his directly. With a small but clear nod I gave him his answer.

"Alright then. Tomorrow morning I'll take you down to the lake and I'll give you a test. If you pass then I'll fill out the paperwork for the academy." He said, softening his gaze and squashing the intent he'd put behind it.

"And if I fail?" I asked, still trying to win the battle of wills that had already ended.

"Then there's always next year. Now go get some sleep, you're gonna have to get up early." He said with a dismissive wave of his hand. This finally signaled to me that I could relax.

With that came the letting out of a breath I hadn't even realized I'd been holding. When I failed to leave the room he quickly shewed me off to bed so he could get back to combating the mound of paperwork sitting on the table.

I did my best to force myself to sleep, but much like my old self, sleep was something that didn't really come that easy when I was nervous or excited. However, I did have something this time around that I lacked before.

My own chakra.

While I couldn't really access it yet, my natural sensitivity to chakra sensing in general meant that if I concentrated hard enough, I could make out that "warm soup" feeling that was ever so comforting. Like a warm blanket on a cold night, I could lose myself in it and fall asleep in no time.

Dad woke me up probably around four in the morning, the sun hadn't come up yet and didn't look like it would for awhile. Mom was up as well and had already made breakfast, her usual smile seemed to shine brighter than usual, she offered a cheerful good morning and ruffled my slightly unruly hair before disappearing into the house somewhere else.

While not odd, I figured it had to do with me wanting to become a shinobi and her trying to hide her own possible disagreement. I looked to dad who seemed to have a knowing smile and almost a gleam in his eyes and looked just all around happy, weird.

After breakfast, we left and walked to the lake situated in the forest on the outskirts of the Uchiha compound. Once we got there dads face seemed to take on a more teacher like appearance.

"If you want to become a shinobi worthy of the Uchiha name then you need to be able to meet certain standards." He gained a slight smirk before blurring into a number of hand seals.

"Fire Style: Great Firball Jutsu!"

He said before expelling, well, a great fireball over the lake. It was about the size of a sedan and to my eyes, absolutely awesome!

He turned to face me with a satisfied grin.

"That is your end goal. If you can perform that Jutsu then I'll sign off." I studied him, that was just to easy, and I voiced said opinion.

"Ok, but you said standards, so what are the rest?" The corners of his lips turned upwards in a slight smirk.

"Good, you were paying attention. I was half expecting you to rush right into trying it." He said with slight praise before reaching into his kunai holster and throwing one into a branch of a nearby tree about fifteen feet off the ground.

"Your second task is to retrieve that kunai. I'm not expecting you to figure out tree walking yet but, all shinobi can enhance their physical skills and attributes with chakra so reaching that even at your age is doable."

He then directed my attention to some logs arranged in a semi circle and brought me to about the middle point in between the last two logs on each side which if I were staring straight ahead were just on the outside of my peripheral vision.

"The final task is to be able to bullseye each one of these targets while only keeping your head and body straight. Sometimes you may find yourself chasing an enemy who may have friends around you and you need to keep your eyes on him but be able to engage those around you."

I both mentally high fived and slapped myself, on one hand, I'd guessed the fireball Jutsu part. I'd remembered Itachi and Sasuke having to perform said jutsu for their dad, although maybe that wasn't a test so much as a right of passage thing but it would make for a good test so at least to me the logic made sense.

I slapped myself for not running and playing more though. For someone my age I'd say I had a much higher understanding of chakra in general but lacked the physicality needed to actually use said knowledge.

"Gods above I've become part one Sakura!"

"The deadline for academy applications is in three weeks. So I'd recommend you put in some serious work if you want to make it." Dad said, thankfully snapping me out of my self deprication before it could out of hand.

We then spent the rest of the morning going over things that would help point me in the right direction.

First, how to properly hold and throw kunai and shuriken. Something that most early academy hopefuls would aready know, but due to my previously mentioned shortcomings, required patient instruction.

Second, how to access, move, and apply chakra for physical augmentation along with exercises to help strengthen my body itself. Easier to pick up than the whole throwing sharp things and at least some redemption for my bookworm side.

Third, hand seals, how they interact with the body in order to mold and change the nature of chakra, and exercises meant to increase flexibility, dexterity, and mobility of my hands like cats cradle, finger and thumb touches ect, and finally the hand seals necessary for the great fireball jutsu.

By this time the sun was coming up, dad said that he was going to run some errands for mom and would be back later. quick check for his chakra after he dissappeared showed that he was, in fact not running errands for mom but instead hanging out in the woods about fifty yards off to my left, far enough that he was out of eyesight and at the extreme range of my sensing ability.

I suspect he didn't know I could or didn't think I would actually check for him. Either way I settled in for a long three weeks.

After the first day where I mostly flailed around the field trying and failing to jump up a tree, looking like a moron forming hand seals and getting nothing but sprained fingers, throwing kunai at targets, missing by miles running to pick them up and the exercises thrown in between them dad finally came out of hiding and walked me home where I took a shower, ate dinner and promptly collapsed into my bed.

The next day however I woke up early by myself this time, made breakfast and left for the lake by myself. During the time I spent walking there, I decided to actually create a set schedule for myself to try and maximize my time.

Fourty five minute warm up, and then two hours of physical exercise. Thirty minutes break before moving into three hour blocks of training for each task. Then a fourty five minute cool down to end the day.

Sometimes dad wouldn't hide and would actually watch like a normal person, and more often than not mom would stop by and drop off lunch and even watch and offer advice. That's when found out mom had actually been a Special Jonin before she met dad, and she made a pretty good teacher as well.

Within the first week of sticking to the new formula I'd managed to be able to jump up and get the kunai down from the tree.

Cool, one task down and two more to go.

The kunai targets were the next task to fall to my more disciplined training regiment. I figured out that using my sensory skills I could feel the disturbance they caused in the air around it.

Admittedly it was like picking a needle out of static made of more needles at first but eventually I figured it out. I also realized that I probably had a far more developed sensing ability than I'd initially thought but that investigation could wait until later.

With two of the three task down and a week and a half left to go before the deadline I increased the number of hours I spent training from nine to twelve. Eight of those hours became dedicated to getting the jutsu down.

I was beginning to run myself ragged, some would look at it as extreme dedication to training while most would see it as almost idiotic levels of self punishment, but to me it was something that had to be done.

I had to make it into the academy, had to train like this so that I could become stronger especially since the news broke that the second shinobi world war had ended.

Oh yeah, that had still been a thing even though almost all major combat operations had ceased a few years ago. Kinda like what had been going on in Afghanistan before I died. War is still a thing, but no one is actully doing a whole lot about it anymore.

This in itself was both good and bad. Good because, the war was over. Awesome, no more dead kids for another few years. Also because it all confirmed what point in the timeline I'd been born into.

Little to no playing outside meant that I'd never run into any possible familiar faces. Considering how long Hiruzen Sarutobi had reigned, even before Minato took over, it would've been easy to have been born well before now and not even known.

Especially because the war hadn't officially been named the Second Great War yet. It was still just considered a continuation of the First. It's really quite confusing.

But it was also bad because all that meant that my generation would be thrown head first into the meat grinder that would be the next war.

So if I wanted to change the normal history and prevent some serious damage and possibly my family and myself from being murdered by a thirteen year old martyr then I needed to be as strong as possible.

Sure it may seem cliché, and on the surface it seemed almost selfless. Use your knowledge of the shit show that was this worlds future to make it better.

But in reality, I actually came to love my new family. And dammit, I'd do just about anything to see them continue living. If that meant changing the future by trying to develop nuclear ordinance and dropping it on every other major village. Then so be it.

Let there be no mistake, when it comes to people I care about. I'm a very dangerous and selfish person.

Anyways. A few days before the deadline, dad stopped me from going out in the morning and told me that I was going to take the day off, when I say told I really mean he ordered me to take the day off. Which was odd considering how supportive he'd been up to this point.

At this point mom and dad never really told me not to do anything before. Granted I hadn't given them a reason, but my point is that it hadn't happened before. I wasn't mad mind you, I wasn't some spoiled rich kid being told he couldn't have a new car or something like that.

It was just kind of confusing I guess.

So since I wasn't allowed to go out and train, I decided to stay home and try to catch up on some much needed sleep.

And boy did I sleep.

I'd gone so far down the rabbit hole of sleep that I didn't even dream. Just hours of uniterupted blackness.

And it felt so good when I woke up the next day around noon. The house was filled with the sound of excited shouting and giggling, deciding tp investigate, I managed to rouse myself from the heaven that was my bed and walk into the spare room to find my mother sitting on a chair knitting a small blanket with a bright smile on her face and looking like she was about to burst at the seams with excitement while my dad with his bandaged fingers looked the same while he was busy fushing with... a crib?

What was goi- wait, oh, small blanket, crib, parents practically glowing.

Ohhhhh.

Only one answer then.

"So when's the baby due?" I said trying to remove the sand from my eyes while trying my best to hide my excitement.

Both mom and dad jumped slightly at my unannounced arrival before looking at me with surprise written on their faces. My guess is they were trying to figure out how I knew since we hadn't exactly covered the birds and bees yet.

Sometimes having all my old memories came in real handy. Dad grinned at mom and they broke into laughing fit which washed away the surprised looks until mom regained some semblance of composure and spoke up.

"Well, I was gonna tell you before but your father told me that you were going to start training so I decided I'd wait until after you'd be accepted into the academy." She said in her usual soft voice. Dad meanwhile just shrugged

"I told her that you'd probably figure it out before hand." He said with a light hearted smug smile aimed at mom.

"We still don't know wether it's a boy or girl and your mom wants to be surprised but it'll be a while until the baby comes so dont worry about that. Besides, don't you have training to be doing young man?" He finished with his smug smile turning into a face splitting shit-eating grin.

My eyes widened as I realized that I'd waisted the first half of the day sleeping, I managed to get washed, dressed, and grabbed a small bento that was waiting by the door, (thanks mom) as I rushed out to the lake.

The Lake was about a mile away from the house and I could now make it in about six minutes if I was boosting myself which was far better than I could ever hope to do in my past life. After setting my stuff down and catching my breath I walked out to the pier, I watched my reflection in the lake for a moment.

I taken to doing this every morning once the sun came up before launching into the days training. Partly to remind myself that I was, infact, in a new body and had a new life, and partly because I would have to motivate myself, even if I pushed myself to the point of collapse and wanted to quit I knew I couldn't.

Especially now that I had another member of my family to protect on the way.

I always hated seeing people upset, I hated when people cried, people close to me doubly so.

That's why I became a soldier in the first place, was to help people. Some would find that as a little odd, helping people by killing people, seems kinda counter intuitive but it was the only way that I saw as having even a remote chance of working so I took it.

The difference this time is that I know what's coming and how massive the power gap is between the members of the Akatsuki and, say an average Jonin was... substantial to say the least, and that's not even taking guys like Madara into account.

Taking all that in, and the fact that I couldn't even perform a simple fireball jutsu definitely made me feel like I was biting off more than I could chew.

Objectively I knew that I was being too hard on myself, I always had been my worst critic, and I had made excellent progress all things considered, but like they say, old habits die hard.

That said, I did my usual warm up followed by ten minutes of cats cradle, practice all hand seals ten times and ten minutes of deep breathing. With one last deep breath I started.

"Horse, serpant, ram, monkey, boar, horse, tiger."

As I went through each seal I could feel my chakra moving and molding itself to the center of my being. I breathed in.

Now, I'm not really sure how to describe the feeling of transforming the nature of chakra but, I'll give it a shot. If you've ever flicked a zippo lighter or lit a match you hear a short 'swick' sound, this is essentially the sound of friction creating sparks to ignite the fuel source.

Well, imagine feeling that sound. Then imagine the heat that comes with that feeling and needing to expel that heat. My recurring problem was mostly panicking and not controlling the expulsion of my chakra. When I'd panic I'd lose focus which caused the accumulated chakra to disperse back into my body.

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"

This time however, I was ready for that feeling and didn't lose my focus. I pushed the chakra up, out and into a brilliant ball of orange fire.

I am perfectly willing to admit that I did jump and yell in excitement, and then attempted to repeat my success. Deep breath, seven hand seals, move, and mold the chakra, feel the ignition.

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"

Once again a large ball of fire made its way over the lake.

I did it again! This was so cool!

I was so excited that I didn't notice that, I was collapsing, it wasn't until I hit the water that I realized that I'd horribly overdone it and had actually hit chakra exhaustion.

In a nutshell your body will usually shut down and put it self into a coma like self when you hit severe chakra exhaustion, anything less and it usually isn't much worse then say, getting the flu or something along those lines minus the fever.

So when I hit the water and tried to start swimming my body just wouldn't respond. Found out I make a pretty good anchor, I was sinking fast and was pretty sure that this was it, my lungs were screaming and my vision was beginning to fade when I felt a arm wrap around me and hall me up above the water line.

"Jeez you're heavy!" A young high pitched voice grunted out.

My rescuer swam both of us to shore while I tried to suck in as much air as possible. As I got my breathing under control and the effects of my self induced oxygen deprivation subsided I looked over at my rescuer and was surprised to find a kid no older than me with short black spikey hair wearing a blue jumpsuit.

"Thanks for the save... uhh?" I huffed out.

The kid gained a big goofy smile.

"No problem, Obito Uchiha's the name! What's yours?" He said cheerily as he offered one of his hands to help me up.

"Ohhhh Fuck."

That was pretty much the only thought that ran through my head for a solid minute. but I managed to fake a smile and force out a reply.

"Takezo, Takezo Uchiha." I said as casually as possible.

I guess you could say it was kinda like meeting kid hitler. He didn't know that he was going to be a bad guy, but I did, and I didn't quite know how to handle it.

However Obito, still the very optimistic and enthusiastic kid that he was, managed to break the rising awkwardness by being what I would later come to learn was his defualt energetic self.

"I saw you doing the fireball jutsu so I ran over to come meet you but then I saw you fall in. Which by the way, are you ok? Oh oh, can you teach me the fireball jutsu? Pleasepleaseplease!?"

He rattled off those questions and more so fast I actually couldn't understand what he he was saying. He was also, much to my chagrin, inching closer and closer with each question and was quickly coming into my personal space.

Usually I probably wouldn't mind this but...

A, I'd just met him, and B, he was kind of annoying.

This is when the realization that I wasn't dealing with the architect of a world war hit mem I was dealing with a kid. A kid who at this point wanted nothing more than to be the best shinobi he could be and become the Hokage some day.

"Whoah, Whoah, Whoah. Slow down man. One question at a time, and uh... could you back up just a little please. You're a little to close." I said while using a hand to lightly push him back a bit.

He looked down then back up to me realizing that he was practically face to face with me. He hopped back scratching the back of his head with a sheepish grin.

"Heh, Sorry. I get a little excited sometimes." He said while laughing nervously.

"So are you gonna go to the academy?" He asked, switching immediately back to default Obito mode.

"Yep. My dad told me I had to be able to use the clans signature jutsu in order to go to the academy and I did so..." I said waving and arm at the lake he'd just pulled me out of.

Obito beamed at my answer.

"That's so cool! I'm going too! Hey! Do you wanna train together?" He asked excitedly.

I thought it over, it might not be a bad idea. If we trained together and pushed each other to get stronger then he might not get crushed by a boulder and then not be captured by Madara and turned into an instrument of destruction.

Or it might not make a difference at all other than helping me get stronger. Dark I know, but like I said, I wasn't doing this for heroic reasons.

If he lived, chances were that my family would too.

So yeah, the answer was a no brainer.

"Yeah that'd be cool. Are your parents gonna be ok with you coming to train with me though?" His carefree face took a on a more sullen appearance for a moment before flipping back again.

"I live with my grandmother, but she's really cool and even used to be a kunoichi back before the village was founded! She said that if I wanted to be a shinobi and wanted to train then I could, as long as I do my chores." Well, that answered a question the show didn't.

Not that they really needed to but, hey why not.

"Well if it isn't little Obito." we turned around to see my my dad strolling up to us.

Obito seemed to straighten at the sight of him and gain a rather large smile.

"Hey mister Kaito!" Dad chuckled at Obitos excitement.

"What are you boys up to? And why are you soaking wet?" He asked with a chuckle while pointing to me.

I did my best to look like I had no idea what he was talking about. I was perfectly dry.

Obito on the other hand.

"Oh, well I was walking by when I saw a huge fireball!" He started flailing his arms excitedly in a attempt to show the size of said fire ball.

"I saw it again and ran over to ask whoever was doing it to show me how and that's when I saw Takezo falling into the lake, and then when he didn't come back up I jumped in and swam us back to shore!" Obito finished while also trying to breath.

He's certainly excitable.

And a traitor. Selling me out to my old man like that.

Dad meanwhile just kinda raised an amused eyebrow at me.

"Takezo." He said causing me to sit up straight as a board.

"Congratulations. You've passed the test." I blinked.

"Wait, so you don't want to see me do it?" Dad shook his head.

"I doubt you can stand very well let alone preform any jutsu right now.

He wasnt wrong.

"That said why dont we go home and eat, it's about lunch time after all. I'll sign your papers and will drop them off at the academy afterwards." He reached down and picked me putting me on his shoulders.

He looked back at Obito while we started walking.

"You coming Obito?"

Obito seemed to quit literally shoot off the ground with a big toothy grin so wide that seemed to threaten to cut his face in two. We ended up hanging out the whole day, there was something relaxing about being around him, and his perpetual grin and cheery attitude was damn near infectious.

We would eventually hang out every day leading up to school. we'd train in the morning, sometimes dad would supervise, sometimes mom, sometimes it would even be his grandmother who I learned later was named Okimi. Before I knew it, we were well on our way to becoming thick as thieves.

For someone who wanted to do nothing more than protect those I cared about, I found the thought of slitting his throat in his sleep rather unpleasant. Like I'd said earlier, he didn't chose to be the bad guy.

And now my protective side was fighting with itself over what to do. He was well on his way to becoming my first and possibly best friend in this world, so that brought him under the "protect at all cost" label. At the same time, he represented the biggest threat to those already under that label.

Things like these are why I smoked in my last life.

Anyways, about a week before my class at the academy was supposed to start, we had an orientation of sorts, so we could kinda learn our way around the school.

It also served to let the non shinobi parents to learn what kind of classes their kids would be taking part in, and for me, finding out who of note (other than Obito, Rin Nohara, and Kakashi Hatake) would be taking part in my class. We were gathered in a auditorium of sorts when I found myself perched on my dads shoulders looking for anyone slightly familiar.

Judging by a boisterous personality and rather large eyebrows from both a father and son, I think I found a very young Might Gai and his dad whos name I believe was Might Duy, not sure how or where their names work or come from to be honest.

There was a boy and a girl talking together of in one of the corners, the boy was doing his best to seem impressive and macho, and the girl who had a pair of striking dark red eyes, seemed to be humoring him. My guess was that this was Asuma Sarutobi, and Kurenai Yuhi.

A girl with purple hair wearing a tan jacket and shinobi mesh nawing on some dango had to be Anko Mitarashi. She was perched up on a set of bleachers and watched the crowd with a content smile.

Our joint scanning eventually had us lock eyes and we ended up exchanging waves followed by some not so subtle pointing at anyone we found to be amusing or interesting.

Of course Gai and his dad were the first to be pointed at. How could they not.

The whole thing lasted only a few hours, Dad and set me down as talked with one of the chunin instructors whom he'd apparently served with at some point when somebody bumped into me causing me to stumble.

Said person turned around allowing me to get a good look at none other than Kakashi Hatake. Unmistakable white hair, mask covering the lower part of his face, shuriken patterned scarf, paint peeling scowl showing unresolved trauma from watching your dad kill himself. Yep, definitely young Kakashi.

"Watch were you're standing." He scoffed

I started trying to think of something witty to say since he was the one to bump into me but by the time the first words were formed he was already walking away.

My first impression of possibly my favorite character from the entire series.

Dick.

I ended up finding Obito chatting away amiably with a girl our age who sported purple tattoos on her cheeks which immediately identified her to me as one Rin Nohara.

Now, whereas Kakashi was the walking definition of Jackass. Rin was the definition of politeness. Like with Obito, Rin and I became friends inside of about thirty minutes as we talked about our future goals, and our shared excitement over joining the academy.

When dad eventually came over to take Obito and I back to the compound, the two of us convinced him to take us plus Rin out to eat that night to celebrate our enrollment.

Dad ended up picking the Ackimichi BBQ restaurant for our celebratory dinner, which I'll admit I was fully looking forward to trying after getting to see the food the place put out a few times in the show.

And yeah, every bit as good as advertised. Now I just got to try Ichiraku's. Gods I can't wait!

Rin left after we exited the restaurant saying she needed to get back home, I later found out it was an orphanage. Obito, showing that he'd already fell for her like a meteor offered to walk her home almost as soon as the words finished leaving her mouth. She agreed and the two left me and my dad alone to make the journey back to the clan grounds.

It was a rather quiet journey until we made it to the outside of our house, dad stopped first, turning towards me with a soft look on his face.

"Takezo I want you to listen close to me." He said quietly. When I gave a nod to show I was paying attention he continued.

"I know you've made some friends already, but don't stop." He seemed to be struggling to find away to say what he wanted to.

"Did I ever tell you the story of the Uchiha clans curse?"

Oh. I knew what he was talking about but I shook my head no since he never had told me anyway.

"Their is one thing about our clan that most don't know about. That our clan values love above all else. We tend to conceal it most of the time because of our clans reputation but it's true. To me it's the truly wonderful thing about our clan but, there is downside to that love. When the person ot persons we love and charish so much is taken away it awakens something inside of us."

He closed his eyes for a moment. When they opened a moment later they were red, a ring with three tomo around the pupil giving off an eerie glow in the darkness of the night.

"The Sharigan is our clans greatest strength. But, it usually comes at the cost of replacing our love with hate when that which we love is taken from us. Most are able to control this hate enough not to lose themselves to it, but that is only thanks to the people around us who love us and are able to help us through our pain. Others though open themselves to it, drowning in it until it consumes them, turning then into monsters who seek to bring the world down with them." The last part coming out with barely concealed disdain that had clearly been born from personal experience.

He gave a long sigh, trying to think of what to say next.

"You're going to lose friends, that's just a part of being a shinobi. You will feel the pull of hatred eventually, but if you have good friends who will be there for you when you're at your lowest, you'll be able to endure it. They'll help you deal with the issues that you'll face, become a better shinobi, and become a better person." He finished with a much more hopeful tone and the best reassuring fatherly smile he could give, his Sharingan fading away and allowing his eyes to return to their usual onyx as he stood back up and walked inside.

Admittedly it wasn't the best pep talk, but I got the message, and considering that the vast majority of Uchiha were arrogant pricks who would sooner drag themselves over broken glass than admit a failing of themselves and or especially the clan spoke volumes about the type of person my dad was.

That night as I layed in bed I couldn't help but wonder, what if, in my crusade to change this world ended up with me being the bad guy? That could and likely would end horribly for everyone. I knew who was powerful, what role everyone played, their individual strengths and weaknesses. With as much as I could change it for the better, I could do the same but for the worst.

Yeah, needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night.