"Sigh... what a pain...." muttered Steve as his devil of little sister drags him to his dem- shivers- to the mall.  Steve a 19 year old college junior who let's say is doing fairly well in life, well accomplished in his academics and extracurricular activities; seldom has he had a regret in his life. His family has always been the focal point in his life. Unfortunately his life of peace has just come to a screeching halt.

A car which abruptly swerved off the road was heading at an incredible speed towards his sister, who is about to cross the road. Faced with no option, he leapt and pushed his sister out of harm's way but left him dead center of the car's path.

"Blood....."

"NO NO NO HOLD ON PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME PLEASE DON'T LEAVE US"

.....Silence.....

"Why is it so dark....? Is this really the end" he ponders as he is suspended in pure darkness. He no longer feels the flow of time, unaware of where he is. Yet the only thread connecting him to his soul, his memories; the sounds of laughter of his family, his first birthday, the birth of his sister, the hilarious events of his life, the moments of accomplishment and the proud gazes of his family. All of it has come to an end. Yet he feels no regret; he feels a sense of, for the lack of better terms, wholeness. His sacrifice for his sister was the ultimate moment in his life therefore he feels no regret. If his life saved a life of another who he loved then there is no point in regret.

Suddenly a white light descends onto his body, illuminating the entire space and with that he loses his consciousness. Once again darkness descend but he feels different, almost too different....

".... Where am I??" As he opens his eyes, he feels the cool breeze blowing across his body, the soft earth beneath the ground and the many bruises which aches throughout his body. As he returns to his senses, he sees his reflection on a puddle of water, he notes how he looks completely like the 12 year old Naruto Uzumaki just before he became a genin.

A strand of memories appear before his sight; foreign to his own, he could only theorize that this set of memories belonged to Naruto. As to how Naruto got into his current predicament, he apparently slipped off a tree and fell head first into the ground, as he was escaping with the scroll to practice the jutsu allowing him to pass.

Wait hold on, what are those those green strands glowing in my mind am I hallucinating. Strangely however he felt no anxiety nor did he feel it was right to question his circumstances, for now as he felt in his subconsciousness that he had a certain course of action . He got up feeling a bit groggy and unable to get his bearings right. He closed his eyes trying to get acquainted with his new body, slowly raising his index fingers then rotating his wrists, bending his elbows to finally rotating his arms. He then moved on to wiggling his toes and bending his knees to finally raise his upper body to a kneeling position. As he successfully accomplished this feat he then threw arms around the tree next to him and tried to get on to his feet.

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He stood panting as he is still getting used to his new body and as he did so he observed his surroundings for the first time. He seems to in the middle of a forest, with a stream flowing through it to his left. He felt parched and he reached for the scroll and walked up to the stream. Kneeling down he drank as much water he could possibly take.

Well let’s see what I should now…… hmmm if I remember right from the story, this is clearly a trap. Also is the day that he learns that he is jinchuuriki of the Nine-tailed Fox. Mizuki eh…. Oh well better master the Multiple Shadow Clone jutsu as soon as I can. He then opens the scroll of forbidden scrolls and then memorizes the sequence of hand seals. Hmm this scroll first mentions the parent jutsu, the shadow clone jutsu and then goes onto mentioning the multiple clone. Figures that Naruto was able to master this technique pretty soon due his monstrous levels of chakra .

 As he stands up he takes in a deep breath he realizes one amusing fact, he has for some reason obtained an eidetic memory. How this fact is amusing however attributes to the fact that his memory only applies to his current self, not to the two previous lives of the host's body and mind; he knew this as if someone has reprogrammed his mind. As he exhales he focuses on his chakra and starts executing the hand seals for the shadow clone jutsu. He then takes a mental note of his chakra flow and then as reaches the final seal, he mutters “Shadow clone jutsu”. With a puff of dust two clones of himself appear in front of him.

While he was observing the chakra flow in his body, he noted certain deviations to which he attributed to the Nine-tailed fox. With that said it is puzzling as to how there seems to be no difference on the seal as Naruto did die. Well no point dwelling that let’s get back to training or whatever last minute preparation to avoid death is called . As he observes both clones, once the green strands flare up in his mind, he commands “Start running a circle of circumference 400 meters and then fight each other for two hours”. As the two clones start running he focused on redoing the same technique and he noted the subtle differences this time around his chakra flow, it seemed more efficient. Interesting. As the two clones appeared, the green strands appeared in his mind as he remembered the tree climbing exercise that Kakashi put team 7 through. Well there seems to be a few hours before the main event better try not overdo it. He then ordered them to focus their chakra onto their feet and started climbing the tree with running start without using their hand for two hours. As the two clones ran over to fulfill their task, Steve.. no Naruto started observing the scroll more carefully.