Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, its characters or its settings.

I'm so tired of this.

My name is Naruto Uzumaki. Not that it matters much, but that's my name. I'm – for wont of a better term I'm a time traveler. Oh, not by choice, mostly because I'm dumber than I look (about as stupid as people think I am) and keep forgetting that little fact. That's how I ended up cursed for time and eternity to endlessly repeat the final fourteen years of my life.

Midnight was the start of my second repeat. When the sun comes up I report to the shinobi academy to fail my graduation test.

I look twelve, but I'm actually twenty six. Or forty, depending on how you count. I've had two of every birthday between thirteen and twenty six. If you counted the days from my birth to today you'd get less than thirteen years, but if you counted the days I've actually been alive you'd find I've been Naruto Uzumaki for forty years now, only I never actually make it past twenty six.

Long story.

You could call it an annoying cosmic accident (though it wasn't accidental). You could certainly call it ironic; to a lot of people twelve is basically when my life started.

Sort of.

It's kind of difficult to explain.

Anyway, here I am, twelve years old for the third time, with the full joy of watching another fourteen miserable years unfold before it happens for the third time. Then I'll appear back on this rock to start it all over again.

This repetition is only about five hours old; I arrived a little after midnight. I knew it was going to happen, of course, so I'm a lot more composed then I was last time around.

Makes me sick to my stomach.

I have to laugh actually. As ridiculous as this sounds these are the best years of my life. I should be thrilled to live them over. Again.

I guess your response to that depends on your age. There's this great cosmic lie out there that your teen years are by definition the best years of your life. That sort of argument only makes sense to people under twenty. Trust me, when you've been crapped on as often as I have there's nothing like being twenty five, fully grown and able make your eyes glow with red fire at will. Keeps the yokels at bay while you face down the biggest bully in town, smile and offer him the golden opportunity of having both his arms pulled off. Teenage years? You can keep 'em.

Anyways, here I am, twelve years old again, forced to live the next bloody fourteen years over. Don't get me wrong, I got a pretty good run, the first time around. Okay, 'pretty good' might be a bit of a stretch, but in hindsight my actual teenage years were better than I'd a right to expect, given the whole demon fox thing.

I shouldn't say that, it's a lie. My second passage through my life was hell on earth. Knowing what was going to happen has made the last fourteen years of my existence a living hell of repeating mistakes and wading through death I was powerless to stop.

I had hoped my life would end for real last night and it didn't, though that doesn't make me any happier with what happened. Fortunately I've had fourteen years to get over the worst of my anger. I always seem to make the cardinal mistake of assuming people can change, will change.

Destiny is easy. Changing people though, that's hard. Neji had his wires crossed on that. People don't change. That's the one true rule of life.

To be quite honest I really don't feel like sharing the details of how this endless loop started. Don't like that? Tough. I don't recall anyone telling me I had to like it. Their future, my past, all set in perfect stone in my memories. I get to live it a third time. About the only good thing is I merge with the younger me when I come back, meaning I don't have to deal with some little turd screaming 'Believe It!' at anyone who'll listen.

Now that would have been a nightmare, the true secret of the shadow clones-

So naive. I'll be the frickin' Hokage one day, just like that. Let me know how that works out for you, Naruto. Hokage my ass. Being the best wasn't enough. At twelve I didn't understand that. Sometimes you've got to be a little older before you'll accept that all your hopes and dreams are nothing more than fantasies. What made it worst in my particular case was an entire village who'd never have let me become Hokage; nothing I could have done would have landed me that hat. All those years and all that noise I made...

This sounds stupid, but I remember today like it was yesterday. Today I fail to graduate from the academy, that dill weed teaching assistant tricks me into stealing that stinking scroll and Iruka gets himself messed up taking some hits for me.

I'm sick to my stomach in anticipation.

I spent most of the night sitting on the Hokage monument head. The third, if you must know, I liked the old man. Not the dill hole fourth.

Wish I'd gone back far enough to meet that one. Hokage number four would find Kyuubi's little friend a hell of a lot more dangerous than Kyuubi herself. I would have beat that guy into pulp, and I'm a Sanin-class nin, I could have done it.

He's not my father. Anyone who'd do something like that to an infant can consider his ass disowned, he's no relative of mine.

I gave serious though to smashing his damn stone head into sand, and bugger the consequences. So a bunch of city blocks would get flattened-

These people aren't my friends.

Sunrise came soon enough. Went back to my apartment, heated some ramen-

Bloody apartment. I moved into it with the old man's blessing when I was six, lived there for the next twenty years. Then it happened, and I relived fourteen years there. Now I'm back for fourteen more. I don't even want to think about after that.

Maybe this time I'll be lucky and actually die.

Apartment. The only home I've ever had, one little oasis of privacy for Naruto. The old man moved me in here at six because the kids at the orphanage would eventually have managed to kill me. They'd tried before. At twelve I wasn't old enough to fully appreciate a four year old putting bathroom cleaner in a three year olds soup 'so he'd die.'

Kid wasn't even punished.

You know I have to laugh. This apartment the only 'home' I've ever had, and all I can think of is that another repeat of the next fourteen years of my life means I'll be paying each months rent for the third time.

Do the whole damn thing over. Can't believe it. Ha ha, that's a joke, see? Believe it? Oh, you're a funny one, Naruto. No wonder they call me dead last.

Time to go, the sun is coming up. I remember this day so vividly, even down to the damn orange jumpsuit-

Ah, what's the point? Time to go back to repeating the rest of my life.

I took my seat, ignored Sasuke, ignores Sakura, ignored everyone. What's the point of paying attention? I already know how this turns out. Ready to repeat the whole damn thing over again. I just hope I remember my lines.

I shrivel up and die inside every time I think about having to kiss Sasuke.

Iruka Sensei isn't as tall as I remember him, nor as impressive in general. At least if you look at him as a nin. Back then that's the only way I could see the man. Now I can see Iruka-sensei a little more realistically. Great shinobi? Nope. Excellent sensei? Not really that, either. Adequate, somewhere between adequate and good maybe, I don't know.

A decent guy, though?

Well, yeah, more or less. I've always felt Iruka genuinely wanted me to succeed. He knew how hard life had been for me, every shinobi did. A nice guy, a decent guy even. But ultimately an adult with concerns of his own. Sure he bought me ramen a few times, and that was good of him; he didn't have to buy me ramen.

Iruka was my sensei, not my friend. He treated me like a good sensei would, maybe even like a great sensei would have. He really did want me to succeed. That said...

That said, I considered the man the closest thing I had to a friend at this age, and he wasn't. A kind adult, yeah. A teacher with a bit of a soft spot for a troublemaker, that too. But my friend? No.

First up we sit the test for graduation. Or as I like to call it, the ritual humiliation of Naruto. Everyone but me knew I had no chance of passing this. I'd failed it twice at this point, six months ago and then three months ago. I'd carefully failed it my last time through, just like I was supposed to. Just like I'd mirrored ever damn event of my life that had first brought me back to this bloody place and time.

Academy classes start four times a year. I'm five months older than Sasuke and six months older than Sakura, so I'd started two groups ahead of them. You'd think deliberately failing wouldn't have hurt so much when I'd had to do it, but it did. By this point in my life I'd failed twice and been moved back twice; Sasuke and Sakura had caught up with me even though I'd started six months ahead of them. Classes are sort of mixed for some subjects, so I'd known both of them, or at least why I'd been acquainted with them for years at this point. Still, today was to be their first time through the wringer, and neither of them had a doubt in the world. Today was my third and stupid me, I'd thought a miracle would drop out of the sky. After all, I was going to be the Hokage some day.

I was so totally convinced I'd pass that it really had shocked me when I failed.

I went that whole morning without shouting "Believe it!" even once. I'd done it last time, this time I refused and didn't say a word. Then came my turn for the practical test. Yeah, call up three clones, so I called up three-

Wait a second.

Wait a se – wait a damn second.

Three clones, right, I summoned up three clones, proper solid ones, perfect ones. And I mean perfect. I know I was supposed to fail, history tells me that I failed, but at the last instant I decided I damn well wouldn't. He said three clones, I did three clones.

I got my headband and stood there like a fool with the headband in my hand. This isn't right, this is not the way it happened. I – I – I mean I know I screwed up what was supposed to happen, but I'd been expecting a poof, a flash of light – maybe the hand of Kami reaching down to swat me for screwing up Time, but it didn't happen.

I passed, I'm a shinobi. Suddenly I'm left with a – a – a possibility, a possibly I'd never even dared to dream about my last time through. It boggled my mind to even consider it.

Can my past be changed?