If someone had told me a week ago that reading fanfiction could one day be classified as "character research," I would've laughed them out of the Reddit thread. I mean, what part of reading alternate timelines of Naruto marrying an Uchiha counts as productive time? But here I am—sitting in the lobby of Nextech Industries, the world's most advanced tech conglomerate, nervously sipping on overpriced machine-brewed coffee, waiting to be implanted with humanity's first commercially viable neurochip.
I'm not a scientist. Not a doctor. Not even a developer. I'm a tech reviewer. A casual one at that. My YouTube channel barely scrapes 100k subs, and my most viral video involved unboxing a budget phone with a fried motherboard. What the hell am I doing here?
The truth is, I was bored.
My name's Kian. Twenty-eight. Mild caffeine addiction. Lifelong anime fan. And yeah—when I'm not tinkering with gadgets or reviewing mid-tier smartwatches, I spend my evenings buried in fanfictions and webnovels. Some guys go out, party, travel the world. Me? I read fix-it AUs and argue in comment sections about Itachi's true motivations.
When the invite came from Nextech, I thought it was spam. "We are extending a private invitation to review our revolutionary brain-computer interface prototype." Sure, and I'm the reincarnation of Madara Uchiha.
But curiosity kills, doesn't it? So I said yes.
The receptionist ushered me into a minimalist room that looked like Steve Jobs and Tony Stark had a baby. Chrome walls. A floating holographic interface. Even the damn chairs looked like they came out of a sci-fi movie.
"Mr. Kian," a soft voice spoke. A woman in a pristine white coat walked in, tablet in hand.
"Dr. Hoshino. Lead engineer of Project NeuraLink."
"Like Elon's Neuralink?" I asked, half-joking.
She smiled without humor. "That was a toy. This is the real thing."
They explained the chip. How it wouldn't just enhance memory recall or connect to the internet—no, that's outdated tech. This chip, codenamed Ares, would link conscious thought with advanced quantum computation. Your brain… upgraded. Real-time multitasking, virtual overlays, data integration, memory management—hell, you could technically live inside your own simulation.
"But don't worry," she said, noticing the way I'd started to shift in my chair. "This is a closed beta. We've tested it with lab rats, AI simulations, and even a few of our own interns. The procedure is non-invasive. You'll be sedated. No risk."
Right.
No risk.
I signed the NDA.
I signed the waiver.
They strapped me to a chair and told me to count backward from ten.
Something went wrong.
It wasn't like the movies—no sudden jolt, no Matrix-style awakening. Just… awareness. A vast, cold void stretching in all directions. Like my mind was floating in an ocean without gravity. Time didn't pass. Or maybe it did. I couldn't tell.
Then came the voice.
"ERROR: Neural interface conflict. Host consciousness destabilized."
What?
"Attempting reboot... Reallocating host."
That didn't sound good.
"Insufficient biological data. Quantum tether compromised. Rerouting—parallel existence detected. Initiating failover sequence..."
And that was it.
My last thought was oddly appropriate for a tech nerd like me:
So this is how Windows feels when it crashes.
Light.
Pain.
Breath.
But not my own.
I gasped—air rushing into unfamiliar lungs. My limbs flailed, weak, uncoordinated. I was lying on something soft—no, warm. A body? Arms cradled me.
Voices. Muffled, panicked.
Then—a woman's voice. Soft. Weary. Loving.
"Yosh… It's a boy."
Wait.
What?
The blinding light faded. I blinked rapidly, trying to process what I was seeing. A dimly lit room. Straw ceiling. Paper walls. And the woman—sweaty, pale, but smiling—wasn't wearing a lab coat. She was wrapped in some kind of cloth robe.
Another face leaned over. Male. Broad-shouldered. A headband with a metal plate gleamed on his forehead.
The symbol on it—
No. No way.
That was the Hidden Leaf Village crest.
This wasn't a dream.
This wasn't a simulation.
I was in the Naruto universe.
Time passed—or maybe it was time dilation. I don't know. My memories were intact. My mind, mostly stable. But I was a baby. A literal newborn. They named me Rei. I didn't recognize the names of my new parents—so no major clan, I guessed. That ruled out most overpowered cheat-start scenarios.
But I wasn't angry.
I wasn't scared.
I was fascinated.
Was this… isekai? Transmigration? Did I just die and reincarnate into the Naruto world?
Fanfiction had prepared me for this moment in the weirdest way possible. I knew timelines. Clan names. Bloodlines. Power scaling. Political tensions. I even knew what ramen stand had the best miso broth in Konoha.
But knowledge doesn't equal power.
Not here.
Not yet.
The first few years were tough. Being a baby again is a special kind of torture, especially when your mind is 28 and your body is... well, not even potty-trained. But I adapted. Learned the language. Memorized everything. I listened like my life depended on it—because it did.
I learned my year of birth. The current Hokage. Who was alive. Who was dead. It didn't take long to place myself firmly before the events of the main series.
I had time.
Time to grow.
Time to train.
Time to survive.
Because let's be real—this world is brutal. Shinobi wars. Genocide. Monster foxes. People die like background characters in a zombie movie. I wasn't going to be one of them.
The chip—whatever was left of it—was silent now. No voice. No interface. But sometimes, when I closed my eyes, I felt… echoes. Memories processing faster. Patterns forming. A second mind ticking beneath the surface.
Maybe the chip didn't die with my body.
Maybe it came with me.
Maybe…
I still had the Ares system.
They say every story has a beginning. A spark. A moment that shifts fate.
For me, it wasn't being born into another world.
It was the second death.
The first time, I died as Kian—the guy who reviewed smartphones and read Naruto fanfics.
The second time?
I was reborn.
Not just as Rei of the Hidden Leaf…
But as the variable no one saw coming.