Chapter 2: The Second Life!
Thirty seconds felt like thirty years.
I stared at the interface, my entire being recoiling from those glowing options like they were venomous snakes. My hands trembled uncontrollably as the timer ticked down.
29... 28... 27...
"I can't." The words came out strangled, broken. "I can't do this again. I don't want to!"
The memory was too fresh. Too real. The feeling of my bones turning to powder. The wet crunch of my ribcage collapsing. The taste of blood flooded my mouth in that microsecond before I ceased to exist.
"Please..." I whispered into the void. "Please, I don't want to..."
20... 19... 18...
My eyes darted across the options. Uchiha. Senju. Uzumaki. Each one a promise of power, of ability, of a fighting chance. But the words blurred together, swimming in my vision as panic clawed at my throat.
What did it matter? What good were sharingan eyes or chakra reserves when reality itself could be erased with a single word? When gods walked the earth and crushed villages like ants?
"I can't choose!" My voice cracked, rising to a scream. "How am I supposed to choose?! I don't. I can't..."
10... 9... 8...
The numbers glowed brighter, pulsing with each passing second like a heartbeat. My heartbeat. The one I'd felt stop when Pain's jutsu turned me into dust.
"No, no, no..." I was backing away from the interface now, as if distance could save me, as if anything could save me. "I don't want to go back! I don't want to die again!"
5... 4... 3...
"PLEASE!" The word tore out of me, raw and desperate. "Dont make me!"
2... 1...
[TIME EXPIRED. RANDOM SELECTION INITIATED.]
"NO!"
[RANDOM GENERATION IN PROGRESS...]
"I DIDN'T WANT THIS!" I lunged at the interface, trying to claw it apart, to stop it, to do anything. But my hands passed through the screen again. "YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! YOU CAN'T!"
[SELECTION COMPLETE. DROP LOCATION: KONOHA. RANK: JONIN. SPECIAL ABILITY: WATER STYLE. STATS COMPILED.]
The void opened beneath me as the darkness swallowed me whole.
Not gradually. Not gently. One moment I was screaming into the darkness, and the next I was falling, plummeting through an endless abyss that pulled at me with invisible hands.
"No! NO! I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK!"
But the void didn't care. The system didn't care. And as reality rushed up to meet me once again, I realised with horrible, crushing certainty that nothing I said or did would ever matter.
This was happening whether I liked it or not.
Again.
Reality hit like a slap to the face, with a side of extra sting.
The transition was smoother this time, barely. One moment, I was falling through darkness, the next I was sitting on something hard and made of wood. A bench. I was sitting on a bench.
My chest heaved as I sucked in air that tasted of sake and autumn leaves. The panic was still there, clawing at my insides, but the overwhelming sensory assault forced me to focus.
Sounds first. Laughter. Loud, raucous laughter that made me flinch. Glasses clinking. The crackle of a fire somewhere nearby.
Then sight. I was in a body again. Another body. Older than before, stronger too. I could feel it in the way my muscles sat on my bones, in the breadth of my shoulders. My hands were calloused and scarred. A jonin's hands.
"Oi! Takeshi!"
The name meant nothing to me, but my head turned automatically, knowing it belonged to me. A man with a bandage across his nose, not the same one, please god not the same one, was grinning at me, holding up a sake bottle.
"What's gotten into you? You're not going soft on us, are you? We haven't even finished the second bottle yet!"
I looked around, my heart still pounding in my chest from the anxiety. We were at what looked like an outdoor food stall, the kind that stayed open late. Four other ninja sat around the table, all in chunin or jonin vests, all flushed with alcohol and good spirits. Behind us, the village of Konoha stretched out in the darkness, peaceful and whole.
Whole.
Not destroyed. Not reduced to rubble and corpses. Just a peaceful setting of what looked like friends enjoying a drink together.
"I..." My voice came out rough. Different from before. Deeper. "I'm fine."
"Bullshit!" Another ninja laughed, slamming his cup down. "You've been staring into space for the past five minutes! What's gotten into you? Is it woman trouble again?"
They all laughed at that, the sound warm and human and so painfully normal it made my chest ache.
This wasn't Pain's assault. This was before. Maybe years before. I was alive, in a body that didn't hurt, surrounded by people who were laughing and drinking and completely, blissfully unaware that...
My thoughts froze.
When was this?
The question crystallised in my mind with sudden, terrible urgency. When was this? What event had the system dropped me into this time?
"Seriously though," the bandaged ninja leaned forward, his expression sobering slightly. "You've been acting weird all night. Something on your mind?"
"Just..." I swallowed hard, trying to think. Trying to remember the timeline. Konoha at night. Jonin drinking together. Peaceful. "Just tired, I guess."
"Tired?" The man scoffed. "We've got the easiest patrol duty in the village tonight! The only thing we have to worry about is—"
The ground shook.
It wasn't violent. Not like Pain's attack. Just a tremor, barely enough to rattle the sake bottles on the table.
Everyone went still as they looked around.
"Was that..." someone started.
Then the screaming began.
Distant at first, barely audible over the normal sounds of the village. But growing louder. Closer. Screams of terror, of pain, of people who knew they were about to die.
"What the hell?" The bandaged ninja was on his feet, hand already on his kunai pouch.
I knew that scream. I'd heard it before, in another life, another death. It was the sound of a village being destroyed.
No. No, please, not again. I thought, feeling the fear flow through my body like glass in my veins.
Another tremor. Stronger this time. Sake bottles toppled over, spilling their contents across the table. In the distance, I could see flames rising into the night sky.
"Emergency!" Someone was shouting from down the street. "All shinobi to defensive positions! The Nine-Tails is—"
He never finished the sentence.
The roar that cut him off wasn't a sound. It was a force of nature, a primal scream that seemed to shake the very air itself. It vibrated through my bones, through my teeth, through every cell in this borrowed body.
I knew that roar.
Every Naruto fan knew that roar.
"Oh god..." The whisper escaped me as I slowly, unwillingly, turned to look toward the source.
The Nine-Tailed Fox...
It rose above the village like a mountain of living malice, its nine tails writhing against the night sky like enormous serpents, each of them toppling buildings. Its eyes glowed with hatred and madness, and its mouth, oh god, its mouth was opening, revealing its huge razor-sharp teeth.
"DEFENSIVE POSITIONS!" The bandaged ninja was screaming now, all trace of drunkenness gone. "TAKESHI, WITH ME! WE NEED TO—"
"No." The word slipped out before I could stop it.
He turned to stare at me. "What?"
"No." I was backing away, shaking my head. "No, I can't. I can't do this."
"Takeshi, what the hell are you—"
Another roar. Closer this time. And with it came the sound of buildings being crushed, of wood splintering, stone crumbling and people dying.
So many dead...
"I'm sorry," I said as I turned and ran.
"TAKESHI!" His voice followed me, full of shock and betrayal. "GET BACK HERE! THAT'S AN ORDER!"
But I was already running, my jonin body moving faster than I'd ever moved in my real life. Faster than Sato's chunin body had managed. My legs pumped, my lungs burned, and all I could think was. Get away. Get away. Get away.
Another tremor threw me off balance. I caught myself against a wall, looked up, and immediately wished I hadn't.
The Nine-Tails was moving through Konoha like a natural disaster. Buildings that had stood for decades, maybe centuries, crumbled like paper beneath its paws. Each step sent shockwaves through the earth. Each swing of its tails demolished entire blocks.
And the villagers...
I watched a woman get crushed beneath falling rubble. Watched a child disappear beneath a collapsing wall. Watched a team of chunin try to attack the beast with kunai and jutsu that might as well have been thrown pebbles for all the good they did.
"This isn't real." I was gasping, still running, my words coming out in ragged bursts. "This isn't real. This is just a story. Just a—"
A tail slammed into the ground fifty meters ahead of me.
The impact created a crater the size of a house. The shockwave picked me up and threw me backward like I weighed nothing. I hit the ground hard, rolling, sliding, finally slamming into something solid that knocked the air from my lungs.
Pain exploded through my ribs. Not the pulverizing agony of Pain's attack, but sharp and immediate and terrifyingly real.
"Get up!" someone was screaming. "GET UP AND MOVE!"
I tried. I really tried. But my body wouldn't respond fast enough, my training—Takeshi's training, not enough to overcome the sheer, primal terror flooding my system.
The Nine-Tails turned.
I felt it before I saw it. The weight of its attention, the eyes of the monster fixed on me. Its head swung in my direction, those massive, hate-filled eyes focusing on the street where I lay gasping.
"No..." I whispered. "Please, no..."
It opened its mouth.
I could see into it. See the chakra building there, condensing into a ball of pure destructive force. A Tailed Beast Bomb. I'd seen this in the anime, had thought it was cool, had debated with friends about its power level compared to other jutsu.
Now I was staring into it, and all I could think was. I'm going to die. Again.
The beast fired.
Not at me directly—I wasn't important enough for that. But at the building behind me, the street I was on, the entire block that had the misfortune of being in its way.
I tried to move. Tried to form hand signs, to use Water Style, to do anything. But my hands wouldn't stop shaking long enough to complete even the first sign.
I was forced to watch helplessly as the blast flew across the ground, ripping up the village with such violent force.
Reality turned white. Then red. Then the pain set in.
The explosion lifted me off my feet, my body ragdolling through the air. I felt my arms break, then my legs, before all of my bones snapped like dry twigs. The heat seared my skin, cooking me alive, even boiling the moisture in my eyes. I opened my mouth to scream, and the fire rushed in, burning my throat, my lungs, my entire being.
I tried to scream but couldn't. Tried to breathe, but there was no air. Tried to think, but the pain was everything, consuming everything, erasing everything...
Then darkness.
THE VOID...
[USER DECEASED. DEATH TOLL: 2.]
I was on my hands and knees before I even realised I was whole again, opening my eyes in pure shock.
The screaming came first. Wordless, animal sounds of pure terror that ripped from my throat without permission. My hands clawed at the darkness, trying to find purchase, trying to find anything solid in this endless nothing.
"No, no, no, no, NO!" The words came between screams, broken and raw. "NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN!"
I could still feel it. The crushing weight. The splintering bones. The wet pop of organs rupturing. Two deaths now. Two different kinds of agony etched into whatever passed for my memory in this place.
"I can't!" I was sobbing now, tears streaming down a face I couldn't quite feel. "I can't do this anymore! I can't, I can't, I CAN'T!"
The interface materialised, cold and patient and utterly unmoved by my breakdown.
[DEATH TOTAL: 2. PLEASE SELECT ANOTHER OPTION TO START AGAIN.]
The timer appeared. Thirty seconds.
"NO!" I screamed at it, at the system, at whatever cruel god had put me in this nightmare. "I WON'T! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"
But even as I screamed, even as I sobbed and pleaded and cursed, I knew the truth.
It could make me.
It would make me.
And I would die again.
30... 29... 28...
"Please..." The word came out broken, barely a whisper. "Please, I just want it to stop..." I said, looking down at the infinite darkness.
But the void offered no mercy.
Only choices.
Only death.
Only the terrible certainty that this was just the beginning, and the nightmare had only just begun.
I looked at the timer as it ticked away, knowing that if I did nothing, it would be chosen again for me.
Knowing there was no choice in all of this, I knew there was only one thing I could do... I had to play. I had to choose the best possible option and try to survive.
This time I would win... I would survive.