Disclaimer: Naruto, to the surprise of no one, isn’t owned by me. 

A/N: So, this is a male “self insert,” but not really as I myself am NB. More of an OC inserted into this world, if anything. Lmk if you have any particular interests in a ship. 

Warning: Prepare for tonal whiplash. I haven’t written anything in forever. Also, I’m going to attempt to make tangents, and call back to them when relevant. It’ll feel weird at first, but maybe it’ll turn out cool?

XxX

Broken rib, conveniently puncturing a lung. Suffocating to death, choking on blood. Honestly? A pretty damn dramatic way to die. Just as I was on the cusp of getting my shit together too… god damn golf cart. Stupid piece of shit literally BLEW UP as I was cleaning the garage. 

But, turns out reincarnation is real. At least, I think it is? I keep fading in and out of existence, seeing flashes of a woman and man with whitened eyes, both with quite the long hair. To me, that sounds a hell of a lot like being an infant, perhaps my thinking mind would fade as I grew older? It seems to be taking all of my body processes just to keep me awake as I am. Two blind parents, too, if their eyes mean anything.

XxX

12 Years Later

Yeah, FUCK THAT. This was N A R U T O. Holy shit, this life really fucking sucks. Every single damn day, I’m getting pelted with hits that should fucking kill a man. The only bright side was that the education was at least good. Chakra? Taijutsu? All succinctly explained and taught to me by the best Hisashi could afford.

The truth is, I have something of a fear of authority. Despite having grown to be an adult, the chemical make up of my brain is still that of a child’s, and an imposing figure like Hisashi was the type of thing that would make me shit my pants. So I pushed myself, hard, just to stay on his good side. Dude even made me beat up Hanabi just to test her out… didn’t feel particularly good about that. I held back of course, as her older brother I very well couldn’t completely annihilate her, but it seems I couldn’t convince daddy dearest I was going all out. 

Oh yeah, did I mention I was Hinata Hyuuga? But like, as a guy. We were pretty similar looking, even down to wearing the same clothes, the only notable differences were my eyes being smaller, and that my hair tended to stick up a loooot more in parts. Male anime characters and their bed-heads, am I right? 

This life really was a fucking mess, though. There was so damn little I could change. I wasn’t allowed to train with anyone outside of the compound until I was a genin, mother still died, I was still kidnapped, Neji’ s father still died… and worst of all, the Uchiha Massacre happened just as it once did. The only thing I did manage to change is retaining a modicum of Hisashi’s respect, still choosing me over Hanabi as the main branch’s successor, and not being perceived as a total weakling by Neji. I was “winning” maybe every third spar we had, mostly due to my intense fear of parental apathy causing me to exert myself far more than I ever reasonably would have, drilling these forms into myself. I needed more creativity. I was way too by the books.

Lost in thought, I find myself in front of my desk at the Academy. Today was finals. My reputation with my peers, or more importantly, the Rookie 9 was… mixed. At best. Due to me being somewhat relative to Neji, and that Neji was able to consistently beat Lee, it doesn’t take a genius to tell that I have physically advanced way more than my peers. If I had to guess, I’m either slightly slower or equal to Lee with his weights on. The Byakugan along with the gentle fist’s principles, unsurprisingly, help compensate anyway. 

And it’s because of this training and upbringing, the competitive kids hated me. I was beating Sasuke in spars, which meant Sakura and Ino hated me, but made Naruto and Kiba like me. Oh, and Kiba’s a girl here, to my shock. But then they started getting frustrated with me when I was easily beating them too. Shikamaru and Shino were sort of just… indifferent, when it came to them. I didn’t have time to hang out with them after class to blossom any friendships… At least I had Choji. 

I only had two notable skills in my previous life, cooking and cleaning. I just wanted to be a house-husband… But those two aspects of me made Choji love me, we talked about food and shared recipes all the time. I also think my cleaning was appreciated by Hisashi, maybe it was a discipline thing.

“Hinata. Please perform the clone jutsu.” Iruka called me forward.

I snap out of my thoughts, a whole class having just passed by me. Not wanting to show off, I lift my fingers to my face and execute the jutsu. However, at that moment, I sneezed, accidentally flaring my chakra and creating 10 illusionary clones. 

“Wow, great job Hinata! You’re definitely a shoe-in for Rookie of the Year.” The pony-tailed sensei shot me a kind smile as I took a step back, embarrassed. Sasuke glared at me, I could almost see the non-existent tomoe. Shit… that’s definitely a ripple, if I get paired with Kakashi.

XxX

“...Team 7. Your team will consist of: Naruto,” he beamed, adjusting the headband given to him by Iruka, “Sakura,” she groaned, smacking her forehead against the desk as Naruto joined, “and Sasuke.” The reactions had been the same as canon, and this elicited a sigh of relief from me. Despite my status as a shoe-in for rookie of the year, Sasuke was deemed close enough, and I sincerely doubt they’d waste the only other sensei with a Sharingan on a Hyuuga. Sure, the dojutsu had been related up to a point, but why settle when you could go for optimization?

Fuck… is Hisashi rubbing off on me?

“And now for Team 8. Your team is made up of: Shino,” he pushed up his glasses, probably as a way to acknowledge he was paying attention, “Kiba,” she smiled smugly, baring her fangs along with Akamaru, “and Hinata.” I guess some things never change, and honestly? That was good enough for me. We did make an excellent tracking team afterall. “Oh, and your sensei told me to tell you guys to just meet him at training ground 3. Dismissed, and congrats to you three.”

Well, I guess Kakashi wouldn’t be using that area until tomorrow if things were still going the canon route in that sense, so I shouldn’t be too worried about th- Wait… did he say he?

I gulped, performing a short bow to Iruka in respect, and rendezvousing with my teammates by the exit of the class.

“Well, I can’t say I expected to be paired up with you two. Why? Because we share no rapport.” Shino spoke to us beneath his comically high collar. 

“Wow, you’re so insightful Shino, you must be the brains of the team.” Kiba snickered along with Akamaru, which, by the way, hearing a dog snicker is pretty damn cute.

I decided I should add to the conversation too. “If you want to know the reason why we were paired Shino-kun, it’s because of the fact the Aburame Clan’s connection with insects allow you to use them as excellent spyware and even relay information back to us, Kiba-chan and Akamaru-sama’s sense of smell allow us to track down Nin who have left behind paraphernalia or even “sniff” out the position of stealthier enemies should my vision fail me. And well, I don’t think I need to explain how the Byakugan helps.” 

Crickets. They both just stared at me with their eyebrows cocked upwards, their expressions clearly skeptical. Kiba punched my gut casually, causing some air to escape through my mouth.

“Ease up dude. There ain’t a reason to be so serious all the time.” She grinned. I couldn’t help but sputter, I may be a main branch Hyuuga but I still require validation from my peers damn it!

“I-I’m eased! I even said a pun in my explanation! G-get it, sniff?!” I waved my hands frantically, attempting to save face, but Kiba just laughed at me, and I think I could even see Shino’s cheeks crease from a smile. Akamaru’s reaction was the saddest of all, he covered his eyes with his paws in second hand embarrassment.

Aww man… I thought reincarnation was your chance to be a cool suave guy… 

We kept walking, and I was just very confused over the fact that despite having the memories of a grown ass person my brain still maintained the same social awkwardness and hormonal imbalance of a pre-teen. Oh god… what the fuck do I do if I get a crush on someone?! I am not going to touch romance with a 10 foot pole. Not for a while at least. 

Ah, we’re here. Who’s our sensei going to be?

Suddenly, before us appeared someone who I most definitely did not expect to be before me… He smiled at me with his eyes, his mask obscuring his mouth…

Kakashi with both eyes. On… time? Wait - then, huh? 

“What the fuck is happening…” 

Ah shit, I said that out loud. Now they’re all looking at me weird.

“Ah, I know what you must be wondering. Is it ‘Why didn’t I get the only other Jonin instructor with a dojutsu?’ Well, hate to break it to you kid, but since you were rookie of the year, the compromise the higher ups made was giving you the strongest Jounin in the village.” He crinkled his eyes in a way that I could only describe as smug. “That, and it would be pretty stupid if we didn’t pair the only two remainding Uchiha in the village together, don’t you think?”

Well, if he’s got both his eyes… that Uchiha is probably Obito. But Kurama still attacked,,, and Naruto was still an orphan and ostracized jinchuuriki… so who the fuck was Tobi?

“Yo, this is sick! We get THE Hatake Kakashi guys! Can’t you be a little more excited?!” Kiba jumped around in excitement, evoking a satisfied and kind smile from Kakashi. At least he seemed more well adjusted? Gosh… this timeline is fucking weird… maybe I should be thanking Hisashi, because otherwise, what the fuck is gonna happen going forward? I need to be as strong as possible to survive whatever bullshittery is ahead. 

“I’m glad you’re excited - but keep in mind that you’ve chosen a really hard career. You will occasionally have orders you don’t agree with, and there are times when taking a life is your only option.” Suddenly, his demeanor had changed from relaxed to serious. He sat down on the grassy field, a gust of wind came through waving the blades of grass below him.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Very cinematic.

I smiled.

“There’s just one thing I want you guys to take away from your time on Team 8. And that is, no matter what the orders are, no matter how disgraced you may think you will be by failure, never, ever, prioritize anything over your teammates. From this day on, the three of you are a unit.” He shifted to a more comfortable sitting position, and cleared his throat, seeming to switch to a lighter mood. “Now, to facilitate that, why don’t the three of you take a seat and introduce yourselves to me?”

Sighing, I was surprisingly the first to sit down, Kiba clearly still being enthralled with the concept of Kakashi being our sensei, and Shino still contemplating the heavy words from our new teacher. I had already decided I won’t kill unless I deem it absolutely necessary. It wasn’t a fun feeling when I did it the first time, I guess as a form of conditioning, Hisashi told me to allow an anbu operative to put me under genjutsu. They must have been a Yamanaka or something, because after that event, rather than feeling immense regret and repulsion at the act of murder, I had instead replaced it with pity. And I guess my weird form of rebellion is not using that ‘gift’ as the motherfucker called it.

Damn. Now I’m in a bad mood.

“I’m Hyuuga Hinata. I like to cook and win sparring bouts. I dislike mayonnaise and bright lights. My dream is to completely dismantle the current way things are done in the Hyuuga Clan, but consider this an S-Rank secret from me! I don’t want father grilling me over that.” That seemed to get some positive reactions from the three. They say vulnerability is a great way to connect with people, and showing them I’m willing to place trust in them was probably good.

Kiba sat cross legged, Akamaru comfortably sitting in the space between her legs. “Yo! I’m Inuzuka Kiba, and I also like sparring, as well as walking with Akamaru! I hate people who are stuck up, and my dream is to be Hokage! Thanks for starting us off Hinata, I actually didn't know what to say at first, hehe.” She rubbed the back of her head. It was sort of interesting how similar she was to Naruto in terms of spunkiness and goals. I guess her reasons were more likely in line with just wanting to prove herself as being really strong or something. 

Shino chose kneeling, and pushed up his shades before speaking. “My name is Aburame Shino. Like the other two, I too enjoy a good challenge in battle. However, my true passion is entomology. I dislike strong smells, and I wish to become a capable village to make my family proud.” He’s always been a hard guy to get a read on. I honestly had no clue he also liked fighting, I don’t remember ever getting that vibe from him.

Kakashi clapped his hands, rubbing them together. “Alright, looks like I’ve got a bunch of battle addicts! Man, you guys would have liked Guy. Too bad he’s already got a team.” He sighed, likely even the thought of Might Guy was exhausting to him. “As you know, I am Hatake Kakashi. Mmm… I’m a fan of reading and books. When it comes to things I dislike… eh, not a lot. As for a dream… in a way, I’m sort of already living it.” He was so sweet in this timeline. I mean, some aspects of him are the same, sure, but otherwise, wasn’t he incredibly nice?! 

“So what we’re gonna do a spin on the same test my own Sensei made me do; for simplicity, we’ll call it the bell test.” His eyes were kind of scaring me…

“Until the day you succeed, you will be attempting to grab these bells from my waist. Otherwise, you won’t get any training!” Don’t sound so joyful saying it… I grimaced. This was definitely an interesting approach to his original method. I wouldn’t be surprised if genin actually resigned themselves from lack of being able to pass.

I looked to my allies, who were expressing their enthusiasm in their own unique way. Kiba was grinning ear to ear, already bouncing in place in the gnarly Inuzuka form. Meanwhile, I could hear buzzing from underneath Shino’s coat.

“There’s only one rule to this test. All three of you must achieve grabbing the bells at least once. From there, we can get started.”

Before anyone could either pounce away - or towards in Kiba’s case - Kakashi, I rose my hand. 

“S-Sensei! May I inspect the bells to make sure that they’re not tricked out in any way? I would consider this akin to researching the contents of a stolen scroll for a retrieval mission, is this acceptable?”

“Maa… well, they’re just normal bells. Here, jingle them around.” He tossed them at me, I presumed he was a bit eager to start as well, because he tapped his foot as I took a look at them. I even activated my Byakugan for effect, and handed one of each to Kiba and Shino.

“Kiba, grab its sent in case Kakash-sensei somehow hides it from my Byakugan. Shino, if your bugs familiarize themselves with it they should be able to target it more easily in the future, right?” I was sweating buckets at this point, as Kakashi was eyeing me with a very speculative look. My teammates swung the bells a bit, Kiba nearly fitting it in her nostril with how much she was trying to mark it, even allowing Akamaru to take a wiff. Shino just looked at it and then back at me, “You do realize that is not how my bugs operate, correct? Why? Because my bugs are very receptive to my instructions, almost linked to me on a mental level.”

I simply offered my insectophile friend a smile, before looking back at Kakashi with a smile that was rivaling Kiba’s previous expression. Taking a few deep breaths, I finally gained the courage to reveal my master plan.

“...We passed, right Sensei? After all, each of us held the bell at least once.” His eyebrows furrowed. I felt some sort of intent coming off of him, probably of the murderous variety, the same sort of feeling Team 7 must have felt in that scene with the thunder behind them.

“I-I was just ki-”

“You’re a clever little brat, aren’t you!” Kakashi’s entire demeanor changed, laughing lightly. “Alright, solely because you pulled a fast one on me, and that’s an actual part of being a ninja, I’ll consider you guys to have passed. However, I still want to see what the three of you are capable of, so don’t untense those muscles just yet.”

Suddenly, the bells were once again in his hand somehow. I hadn’t been able to track his movements in the slightest even in my current state… Was he stronger too, perhaps?

It was stated that he had been slacking off at the beginning of Part 1. Maybe that didn’t happen to this one on account of Obito, and hopefully Rin as well, not dying.

“Your goal for today is to take one of these bells from me. It goes without saying, but you’ll need to cooperate with each other if you even want to dream of the chance of actually taking one off my person.”

And in a swift movement, there it was… The orange book. I couldn’t resist. I tensed my eye muscles to read its contents.

I… wish I was sitting down.

Wiping some blood off my nose, I simply continued to act like I was ready for battle, despite the odd looks of confusion I got from my teammates, and the… knowing look I got from Kakashi.

“Oh yeah, you can start.”

It was by no means flawless, but I had caught on to what the intention was. Shino had already begun to send a swarm of… flies? Towards Kakashi from beneath his feet, likely hidden between the blades of grass present on the field, as Kiba lunged forward. I maintained my position from under her, essentially running at the same height as Akamaru, bent down extremely low. It stands to reason that us Hyuuga have extremely strong core strength to be able to run this low and maintain the position despite the gravity attempting to pull you down from the knees. 

It also helps that I’m the shortest of the three of us, but we don’t need to talk about that.

“Gijin Ninpo!” Akamaru suddenly turned into an impeccable clone of Kiba, and I decided to use this chance to use the standard transformation jutsu in order to join the three, attempting to imitate their movements to the best of my ability. The Byakugan obviously wasn’t at the same degree of the Sharingan when it came to copying movements moment to moment, but an ability I didn’t recall it having was allowing the user to have an eidetic memory. So I was more or less able to falsify my movements.

Kiba simply smirked as she side-eyed me, approving of my strategy. 

“Not bad, but you realize the issue, right?” 

Suddenly, the beast-man that had been Akamaru received a lazy but borderline imperceivable jab from Kakashi with his free hand, which had evidently been hard enough to knock him out of the transformation… into me. Smart dog. 

Kiba lept above, attempting to land a two-handed claw strike on Kakashi’s face, which he effortlessly threatened away with a kunai. In the same breath, Shino’s bugs had turned into the shape of a hand, and began yanking at the bells on Kakashi’s waist. This didn’t seem to bother him much, as a simple flare of chakra seemingly confused the bug’s pathing, causing them to follow the burst. 

I slid under Kakashi’s legs, still attempting to seem as Inuzuka as possible. He simply sighed at me, “You’re obviously not either of the beast men. This might fool another genin, maybe even a chuunin, but you’re just not acting beasty enough.” Performing a half spin kick, I had prepared from something like this. My left arm had been tucked into my torso, elbow to my hip. The transformation dispelled, releasing a cloud of smoke. His kick landed, and it sent me absolutely HURLING through the fields. Worse yet, my index and ring finger were broken. But… my strategy had been a success. 

Kakashi was wobbling, his eyes widening in surprise. Kiba capitalized on her retreat, jumping forward and opting to bite the nearly tripping Kakashi’s hand who was still attempting to find his balance on a disabled half of his body. I had let the kick hit the side of my body as I had preemptively set up my position to use the force of his own kick to allow me to pierce a tenketsu on his leg. It fucked me up real bad, but now was the trump card. I hope this part was still canon…

And I had been right. Shino appeared before Kakashi, landing a solid blow on his torso with a back handed punch. Out his arm rolled out a series of Roly Polys, which pelted Kakashi further with enough force to cause him to stumble a bit more. The bugs that Kakashi had previously distracted had already regrouped, and successfully switched their task to obscuring the bells. Shino then grabbed the arm that Kiba had been biting, which gave her the chance to let go and just barely caused said bells to jingle a bit more than they had in the movement. 

In a flash, Kakashi had regained usage of his leg, spun around on his heel, and simply swatted away my teammates with ease. He looked at his slightly bleeding hand, thanks to Kiba. “Am I getting sloppy?” He sighed with a raised eyebrow. 

“Groundhogs Day… One Thousand Years of Death.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t call this an actual Doton technique, as I had dug with my bare fucking hands like Naruto once did. We were ninja, we could perform ungodly feats of strength, but god fucking damn did a hurt with two broken fingers.

My right hand’s unbroken popped from under the dirt, landing right in between Kakashi’s butt cheeks.

Instead of flying out in a comical fashion, he slumped over on his face. “Ah. That’s right, you Hyuuga can target tenketsu… I wasn’t aware there was one there.” He groaned. I stumbled my way to his side, every muscle in my body screaming, every bone in my body aching, my fingernails beyond repair. To think all this just to poke a guy in the ass. 

But my theory had been right, this was a great way to target the largest tenketsu in the body. 

Yeah fuck, I hope one of them wakes up, I’m not making it, everything hurts.

Everything faded to black then, my eyes had pulsated and a migraine on top of all the pain I had just been through was simply too much.

XxX

I woke up strapped to a log, the smell of marker very palpable to me.

They wrote on my face, didn’t they.

“Be honest. What does it say.” I croaked.

Kiba busted her guts, Shino simply nodded and replied in her stead. “Stinky fingers.” 

How the hell did he manage to turn that around me?! Truly a Jonin-tier ninja…

“Ah! You finally woke up. Sorry about the post and marker, I needed to get my revengeXxX” He smiled sweetly, the bastard.

I frowned, but I did notice my fingers had been recovered, and my body didn’t hurt as much. With some exertion, I managed to brute force through the rope. Both my teammates looked at me in awe.

“...Have you been training with Guy?” 

Okay, that got me to chuckle. I had been training with Neji, and even being relative to him had required I train my body’s base to an unreasonable degree just to keep up after basic chakra enhancement. 

“Never make him laugh again sensei, that was gross.” Kiba teased, punching me in the shoulder. 

“Owww… that still hurts.” I whined. Shino patted my back lightly, as to say ‘there there.’

“That reminds me… I only brought two lunches. Sorry about that, I may have originally been planning something different. Anyways, you guys did great despite not getting the bells, bye-bye now!” 

“W-wait, what am I supposed to e-” aaaaaand he was already gone. I blushed deeply looking to my new teammates. “You guys wouldn’t happen to mind… um… sharing some with me?” I rubbed the back of my head, grinning meekishly. Before I could even open my eyes from a blink they had each managed to time stuffing my mouth with a random assortment of fish and rice with their chopsticks.

T-Two indirect kisses?! Wait… That shouldn’t matter to me. Stupid hormones.

I happily gulped down the offer, and we peacefully sat and ate for the next few moments.

“Y’know, you’re not too bad Hinata. I thought you were stuck up or somethin’ back in the academy, but you’re nowhere near as bad as Sasuke.” She gave me a toothy grin, and Akamaru barked in agreement. 

“I must say, I too was surprised by this show of your personality. Why? Simply because you had been so quiet during the academy that I had thought you to be less boisterous. I applaud your ability to improvise without knowing my silly plan, Kiba-san and I had agreed on a plan behind your back in order to test you, but you somehow managed to enhance it.”

WHAT?! I THOUGHT WE JUST HAD REALLY GOOD SILENT COMMUNICATION!

I grit my teeth, giving an over-dramatic pained face. “I’m sure Kiba-chan’s true intention was to embarrass me, Shino-chan.” He gawked in surprise, which was a lot of emotion for Shino to show. I guess referring to him as ‘Shino-chan’ was weird. Oh well, your turn to deal with my bullshit, I’ve only had the chance to use Sama back in the compound so I’m going to use the damn honorifics I want to use!

Kiba also looked surprised, before getting a flushed face and giving me a noogie. “Didn’t I say to ease up! Learn to socialize, damn bastard! Even bug-boy’s better than you at using honorifics!”

The rest of the evening was spent like this, lively chatting and getting to play around with what I think I could safely call: My new friends.

XxX

A/N: Alright, first chapter done. Expect them to all be around this length, maybe even longer. First chapter is always a bit on the shorter side due to pacing, I feel. By the by, I’m thinking on holding off on romance until a bit later, because I’m not exactly sure how the whole “adult becomes kid again” thing should work. By all means, their brain chemistry and hormonal levels are akin to the people in their age group, but the gap in life experience is like “eeeeehhhhh is it really right though?” Let me know what you think in the reviews. 

In case you didn’t notice, this is massively AU. The plot will resemble canon, for sure, but expect many many changes. If that isn’t your cup of tea, this may not be for you.