Ch.1: Uzumaki Naruto! (Um…No, Not Really…) - 1 -

Kuzumaki Haruto was a living, breathing joke.

No seriously, her very existence was just one big fucking joke.

Her name?

Kuzumaki - Uzumaki.

Haruto - Naruto.

The night she was born? October 10.

Her appearance?

Her haircut resembled Menma’s. Yes, that Menma. Naruto’s genjutsu alternate world counterpart from the Road to Ninja movie.

Red eyes. Considering that Karin and Kurenai also had red eyes, this kind of thing wasn’t considered strange here. Anime logic.

Three whiskers were visible on both of her cheeks.

Her parents? Dead.

Same birthday.

Same whiskers.

Same tragic backstory of being orphans.

Similar appearance to Naruto, but with a different color palette.

Fucking hell. She’d been reincarnated as some shoddy copy-paste OC!

Haruto lived in one of the village orphanages.

Her case wasn’t special. Lots of kids were orphaned after the Kyuubi's attack.

Most of the casualties were among the civilians. Civilians didn’t have the same chakra development as the ninja. So civilians were feeble against the Kyuubi’s onslaught on their chakra systems.

While the village orphanages took care of civilian children, the ninja clans took in orphans belonging to their own. In the family department, the ninja clan kids were pretty fortunate compared to civilian kids.

But the civilian kids weren’t left empty-handed. Once they became of age or left the orphanage early to their own residence, they received whatever emergency funds and personal items were left from their deceased relatives.

Haruto knew that her parents left her some of the aforementioned emergency funds and some of their belongings.

Well, whatever belongings the cleanup crew could salvage from the wreckage of their home anyway.

It wasn’t very much.

First, a recipe book. Haruto couldn’t read it because she hadn’t gone to school yet to learn.

Second and last, a photograph of Kenji and Momoko smiling in front of their house. Both of them had their hands placed over Momoko’s pregnant belly.

They looked so bright and happy.

But then they died not too long after.

How sad…

It wasn’t too long ago that everything came crashing down for five-year-old Haruto. When she took a field trip with her orphanage one fateful day.

The day poor innocent Haruto would never be the same again.

Indoctrination of the Will of Fire started early with a bunch of snot-nosed toddlers.

And where better to instill military propaganda than the most famous monument in Konoha?

The Hokage Rock.

As soon as Haruto looked up at the stone faces, a tingling started in the back of her head. Her face scrunched up.

What? What was this strange feeling?

“Gather round, children!” The orphanage caretakers seated Haruto and the other children at the top of the Hokage Tower.

The children turned their heads, looking around and fidgeting ceaselessly. What did they even walk all the way up the stairs along this cliff for? There wasn’t any fireworks show or candy to be seen.

With how enthusiastic the caretakers acted, you would think that they were taking the children to an amusement park.

So the children, with nothing exciting to fixate on, fussed about in sheer boredom.

Haruto stayed still and quiet, her arms wrapped around her knees. The breeze blew through her hair. It was so nice and peaceful up here…

“Hello, children!” A voice called out, making Haruto and the other kids jolt in surprise.

A woman in a flak jacket appeared in a puff of smoke, making the children gasp in awe. “Sorry about the wait! Paperwork was a hassle to handle today!”

Haruto and most of the kids remained in place, still gawking at the newcomer in amazement. The bolder kids, however, charged up to the woman. “How’d you do that? How’d you do that?”

“Settle down, children! Settle down!” The orphanage caretakers directed the kids to sit back down.

The orphanage caretakers turned to the woman. “We are so sorry about that, kunoichi-san.”

The kunoichi laughed. “It’s all right! Is this your first time meeting a ninja, kiddos?”

The children blinked and frowned in confusion. “Huh? A ninja? What’s a ninja?”

The kunoichi winked. “I’m glad you asked! But first, introductions!” She proudly pointed a thumb at herself. “I’m Hayashi Aki! But please call me Aki-sensei!”

Aki clapped her hands together. “Now! To answer your question, a ninja is a person who uses mystical powers to gather information and fight off bad guys!”

“Mystical powers?!” The children exclaimed.

“That’s right!” Aki’s hands moved in a series of motions. “Behold!”

A puff of smoke engulfed Aki. Once she reappeared, the children gasped. “Huh?! There are two Aki-senseis!”

“This, kids, is the Clone Jutsu!” Aki’s hands moved again. “Now, next is-!”

A puff of smoke covered Aki again. The children shouted, “Wah! There are two Gotaros now!”

Aki had transformed into one of the orphanage caretakers, Gotaro.

Gotaro and the other orphanage caretakers watched in amazement. They knew ninja were capable of performing such feats. But witnessing this with their own eyes always left them stunned.

Aki dispelled the technique, returning to her original form. “-the Transformation Jutsu!”

“If I become a ninja, I could learn how to do those cool tricks you did too?” One of the children asked.

“Yes! That’s right!” Aki smiled. “And you’ll learn plenty of new and cooler techniques too after you enter the Ninja Academy!”

“Ninja Academy?” The children asked.

“Yup! The Ninja Academy! That’s where you’re going to learn how to be a ninja!” Aki’s eyes sparkled. “And it’s going to open and welcome new students very soon!”

The children murmured to each other in excitement.

Haruto just bit her lip. Even though what Aki-sensei showed was cool, she still didn’t feel like going to the Ninja Academy.

“Then after you finish at the Ninja Academy, you’ll become a ninja and go higher up the ranks!” Aki held up four fingers. “There are four ninja ranks, split up depending on experience and skill. Genin, Chunin, Jounin, and the one person at the top!” She pointed up at the stone faces. “Hokage!”

“I’m definitely gonna be Hokage!” one of the kids shouted.

I am definitely not, Haruto thought. For some reason, she had a deep feeling in her gut that she didn’t even want to be a ninja at all, much less Hokage.

Aki laughed. “Maybe, kid. But it won’t be easy.”

“What rank are you, Aki-sensei?” A child asked.

Aki grinned, patting her flak jacket. “I’m a chunin! And someday you could be too!”

The children made sounds of admiration.

Aki started walking towards the end of the Hokage Tower. “Come on! Follow me over here! I want to show you all something!”

The children stood up and gathered around Aki.

Aki pointed towards the horizon. “Look upon the village of Konoha! This is your home!”

Haruto’s mouth opened wide in awe. She never knew the village was so big!

“Listen up, kids!” Aki shouted, making the children turn back to look at her. “You’re all young leaves of the great tree that is our village!” She pointed at the headband she wore. Her finger rested next to the engraved leaf symbol.

Haruto frowned. There was that tingling in her head and that strange feeling again. Had she seen that headband somewhere before? But that couldn’t be right. She’d never seen a ninja before Aki-sensei today.

Aki’s voice filled with passion and determination. “You could train and become the future protectors of Konoha! To carry on the Will of Fire!” She looked over all of the children, staring directly at each of them.

Once Aki’s gaze settled onto Haruto, something strange came over her face.

Haruto couldn’t read Aki’s expression, not knowing why the kunoichi was looking at her in such a way. But…come to think of it, the orphanage caretakers gave her the same look sometimes. Haruto didn’t know what this meant, but she reactively shrank and slumped down where she sat.

“And you’ll support our home alongside our leader, the Hokage!” Aki gestured to the Hokage Stone Faces, making Haruto look up at them again.

Haruto’s vision fizzled.

Wait. What? Why were there seven stone faces? Who was that woman? Who were those last two men with spiky hair?

The tingling in Haruto’s head returned with full force, becoming an incessant pounding this time.

A sharp and intense pain shot through Haruto’s head.

Haruto cried out, clutching her head and stumbling to the ground.

The other children scattered away from Haruto, startled.

“What? What’s wrong?” Aki kneeled down next to Haruto.

Haruto curled up on the ground. “My head hurts! It hurts a lot!”

Aki’s hands hovered over Haruto, hesitating. Then she shook her head. “Can’t be helped…” She took Haruto in her arms to take her to the infirmary.

The medic-nin’s glowing hand made Haruto’s head feel a little better, but not much. She said that Haruto was likely suffering from exhaustion, especially after walking up to the Hokage Tower for the first time. The medic-nin added that the tower was near the cliff face where the Hokage Stone Faces were. So the altitude must’ve been higher than what Haruto was used to. She gave Haruto some medicine to help with the pain.

The entire time, Aki didn’t say a word to Haruto. She dropped Haruto off at the orphanage and left as soon as she arrived.

Haruto’s headache was so bad that she was bedridden with a fever for the next few days.

Throughout several days and nights, Haruto dreamed of impossible things. Things she could never have possibly imagined.

Large villages with glass buildings.

Some kind of portable device that could be held in the hands to play games. How was that person inside the screen even being controlled?!

A device that was worn over the head to listen to music. She had never heard such songs before. What was this language?

Riding in a horseless carriage, moving it around with her hands on the wheel in front of her.

Seriously, what was all this?!

She sat at a table, eating dinner and talking with the other people around her.

Her-her family? These people weren’t Kenji and Momoko! They-they-!

…Oh…

The memories came flooding back.

A past life?

She was…someone else from a land in another world before living in Konoha?

And Konoha was…

Konoha was…!

Konoha was just a place in a storybook. A picture book in black and white. What was it called? - Oh. Manga.

And the story about Konoha was also on the TV just like those cartoons that she watched at the orphanage! - Um…Anime!

The main hero of this story was some loud blond guy in orange who was kinda dumb but had a lot of guts.

This guy looked a lot like Haruto, having spiky hair and whiskers like she did.

And what was the name of the story, the same name as this blond guy?

Naruto.

Haruto rolled over in bed and laid a hand over her head, feeling more exhausted than ever.

To sum up how Haruto felt about her current predicament, she had only four words.

“I’m alive?...”

and

“I’m fucked…”