“Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. ”

― Edna St. Vincent Millay

A long time ago...

In a galaxy far away...

I died.

But before that unfortunate incident, I was just another ordinary, laid back guy who lived an ordinary life, lucky enough to be born into a decent family who cared about me, or not. I really can’t remember all that well, which made it all the easier to accept my new life (courtesy of Truck-kun).

Yes, my new life. I was reincarnated. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I earned enough karma, or whatever other system there is for measuring worthiness of souls, to be reincarnated. Don’t ask me how, or why, but I did. My first memories of my new life were a long time of darkness. A long time. At first, I was scared, due to my completely rational assumption that I was in the afterlife. Now, I don’t know about you, but an eternity of complete darkness does not sound appealing to me, so I tried to escape. In vain.

After an indeterminate amount of time of that pitch blackness, I felt a great pulling sensation which started at my head and moved down my body, making me feel like Munch’s Scream. The pulling continued on and on until… I saw light at the end of the tunnel. The pulling continued until I was fully in the light, bringing me to the realisation that I had been born again.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

It took me a few months to get a grasp of the language, and a few more to be able to get some rudimentary words out, oh and yes, for your information, my first word was mama. After I had gotten my first word out, things started to progress, with mama reading me some basic children’s books about famous warriors and their adventures and how our family came to be. After a year, I learned my name, Shinjiro Nara. Half a year later, I was walking, speaking sentences, and helping out around the house with simple tasks. Tasks that my adult brain found strangely dangerous, such as picking up knives from around the house, of which there were surprisingly many, and bringing them back to my parents, who would be lying down on the grass outside, looking at the clouds and napping, or tending to the deer that would wander into the house on occasion.

My father was Kotaro Nara, my mother Aia Mochizuki and I was Shinjiro Nara

It was when I was 2- and three-quarter years (the three quarters matters) old when I started paying attention. Why? Because, after three years, I had realised something that should have been obvious from far earlier. I was in the world of Naruto.

My father was Kotaro Nara, my mother Aia Maruboshi

And I was Shinjiro Nara.