Prologue

Death is only the beginning.-Geoffrey Blackwood

You know that feeling you get when you wake up form a really intense dream and your mind hasn't quite sorted out what's real and what was part of the dream? What happened to me was kind of like that. At first anyway.

One second I was cocooned in a comforting darkness that felt safe and secure, content to merely exist within my own little corner of the universe, and the next I was cold and terrified and had absolutely no idea what was happening.

More than just being frightened of the unknown sensations assaulting my senses, I was also terrified of the fact that I couldn't move. My arms were weak and didn't respond to my commands. My eyes were so blurry that even when I managed to open them I couldn't see anything. I was confused and afraid and did the only thing that seemed to be within my power to do: I started wailing for all I was worth.

I didn't connect the dots until much later that that what I had been experiencing was actually my birth, that the giants standing around me speaking strange words and smiling down at me were actually my parents. As time went on I discovered that I had been given the name Ryusei Senju and had been born on August 29, two weeks later than expected but perfectly healthy, son of Hiroko Senju and Kaede Senju.

For lack of a better term, as near as I could tell, I had been reincarnated. Or at least I think I was. For all I know I'm lying comatose in some hospital right now, and everything I've seen and done up till this point has just been some fantasy my mind has cooked up.

And that's not even taking into account that I remembered my previous life. I had been an ordinary guy on his way to his first year of college. At least that's the last thing I remembered. I hadn't done anything remarkably bad as far as I could tell, but then again I had never done anything remarkably good either. I was just… average. Even if I had been reincarnated and even if I did remember my past, ultimately I'm not sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

Given the choice I'd like to think that I took a wrong left turn on the way to the afterlife and ended up somewhere I didn't belong.

But for the first few months of my life none of that really mattered to me. What mattered was that I was trapped in the body of an infant and that didn't seem to changing anytime soon. After a few days when I began to realize that whatever was happening to me wasn't going to stop, and that I wouldn't wake up from whatever crazy dream I was in, it hit me that I wouldn't be able to go back to my old life.

It hadn't exactly been amazing, but it was everything I had ever known. My friends and family, my plans for the future, my life. It was all just… gone.

I don't think my parents ever really knew just how grateful I was for them in those first few months of my life. My entire world revolved around them, everything from sleeping and eating to my daily schedule, they dictated almost every action I took.

But above everything else I was most grateful for the comfort they provided whenever I needed it. As a newborn child the only real way I had to interact with the world was to cry whenever something bothered me. Which I did. Frequently. But my tears weren't normal tears.

My tears were for the life I left behind, a life that I would never get to see again.

If I had to choose a moment where I actually began to develop feelings for my new family than this would be the time I would think of. It's impossible to depend on someone, to look to them as such a constant source of love and comfort and not begin to love them back.

I was so certain what I was experiencing had to be a dream for one simple reason. Even if I couldn't figure out why I still remembered my previous life I could accept I had been reincarnated. The part I had difficulty accepting was that I had been reincarnated into the Naruto-verse.

It wasn't just that my parents- and oh my god, did it take a long time before I was comfortable actually thinking of them as my parents- spoke Japanese, or that they wore headbands with the Hidden Leaf symbol, or even the occasional glimpses I would get of the Hokage Mountain whenever my mother would take me out for a walk. All of those things could be faked, one way or another.

There were two specific things that finally convinced me that what I was seeing wasn't a dream. The first was my chakra, not that I was aware of what it was when I first felt the itch of forming chakra coils under my skin. But there was no denying that there was something strange and foreign, something that didn't belong spreading throughout my entire body.

Trying to describe chakra is like trying to describe color to a blind person; there's no good way to do it. The first time I reached for it I hadn't been expecting it to actually do anything, still convinced that what I was seeing and experiencing couldn't be real. To my surprise not only did it respond but it responded eagerly as though it had a mind of its own and wanted to be put to use. The feeling of using chakra is nearly indescribable. Just channeling it to different parts of my body left me feeling both drained and invigorated.

The second thing that made me realize what was happening to me was real was a bit more on than nose than chakra. Since my chakra was all internalized at this point and the effects of it were hardly noticeable I could write it off as my imagination.

But I couldn't do that with the attack of the Nine Tailed Fox.

I was just over a month old when the attack happened. Of course I had no idea what was happening at the time. I had barely figured out I was a child by that stage. But I remember the chakra. Filling the air, it was heavy and oppressive and the fact that I didn't know what was causing it just made it worse.

It weighed down on me to the point that I thought I would die just being in its presence. It was pervasive and terrifying and no matter how much I wanted to I couldn't get away. Time lost all meaning in the face of such raw hatred. The feeling had been so interwoven into the chakra, that I hadn't been able to distinguish one from the other.

When the feeling finally passed all I was aware of was someone, my mother in all likelihood, holding onto me for dear life, clearly terrified but keeping it together regardless, and whispering something into my ear that I couldn't understand, but helped to calm me down all the same.

Days later when I was taken out into the village for the first time since the attack, even with my weak infant eyes, I was able to see the destruction left behind from the attack and that's when I knew what I was seeing wasn't a dream, wasn't fake. Against all odds I had been reborn into a world that I hadn't believed existed.

AN: Well, here we are my second attempt at a Self-Insert. If you're a fan of this story go and check out either 'Dreaming of Sunshine' By Silver Queen or 'Catch Your Breathe' by Lang Noi. There both awesome and if you like this fic you'll love theirs.

Update 10/21/15: I was never entirely happy with the prologue and after a reviewer brought it to my attention that the old one was fairly similar to the prologue of DoS I decided it was time for a rewrite.