Darkness.
Not the peaceful kind that comes before sleep, but a thick, suffocating void pressing against my skin—too warm, too cramped, too…alive.
I strain and twist, and every movement hurts. My body is being squeezed, pushed, torn. The air I feel around me isn't air—it's just pressure, wet and stifling. Oxygen flows through from somewhere I cannot see. I feel weak, my mind screams, Move! -but there's nothing I can do. Panic coils tight in my stomach.
Somewhere above me, muffled voices, low and distorted, echo through the walls. I can feel them more than hear them, vibrating through the fluid that surrounds me.
Then a sudden, unbearable pressure. A sharp, searing pain, and something rips me from the darkness. The cord stretches, then snaps. For the first time, I feel cold, wet, raw. The world is screaming in my ears and eyes all at once. I thrash, my tiny body flailing, utterly helpless.
Pain. Overwhelming. Exhaustion. Panic. Relief. Confusion. And then… breathing, choking, crying. I am alive. At least I think so.
A sick joke. A cosmic prank. I just died and the first thing I experience is this.
My vision swirls with colourless shapes, then fades into blurry smears again. For what feels like days—maybe weeks—the light stabs at my eyes before settling into something tolerable.
When it finally clears enough, I almost wish it hadn't.
Because lying in the small living room, swaddled like a helpless larva, I see them.
Weapons hung neatly on the wall. Kunai. Shuriken. A pair of tanto.
And on a table: two headbands.
The metal plates glint with the unmistakable leaf symbol.
No. No way. Think positive—always stay positive!
A month passes. Maybe two. Time is weird here. Blurry. Heavy.
Eventually, someone carries me outside, and I see them—massive stone faces carved into the mountain. Three of them. Watching over the village like silent guardians.
The Hokage Monument.
People walk the streets wearing flak jackets, flashing between rooftops. Kids yell "Konoha this," "Uchiha that," "missions," "chakra," like it's normal small talk.
My acceptance crashes down on me like cold water.
This is real. I reincarnated into the Naruto world.
And not only that – I belong to the Uchiha clan.
Fucking Uchiha. Fantastic. Just fantastic. Fate really woke up and chose violence. Okay, I tell myself, desperately trying to breathe through the rising panic. Okay, calm down. Think. If I'm Uchiha… then I'm doomed, hunted, manipulated, murdered by my own relative – wait - scratch that, why close one if you are an Uchiha you can have the whole fucking package.
If I weren't physically two months old, I would be pacing, screaming, breaking something. Instead, I kick my tiny feet and make a sad, pathetic clicking noise with my tongue. Pathetic.
After ten minutes of silent raging, I exhale—or, well, my baby lungs wheeze—and force myself to calm down.
No use panicking. Work with what you have. And think realistically. Positive won't help me.
So, what point in the timeline is this?
Three Hokage faces… I have time or I could die in a year. Great. Maby everything will be okay. A functioning village. No signs of mass mourning.
So, I guess this is either before the third war or shortly before the Kyubi attack. Yeah, finding out how long I have to live before being killed by my own cousin or something should be easy.
[Two months later]
Find out what point of the timeline it is. That's easy right? Wrong!
Fun fact: when you're a baby, you can't talk, can't walk, can't spy, can't eavesdrop properly—You can't even control your own drool.
My grand plan to discover the timeline? Foiled by the tragic reality of being two months old.
"At least," I think bitterly, "I have parents."
Two shinobi, by the look of it. Competent. Alive. Well… for now.
Still… I'm alive. And I absolutely refuse to die young again.