Reincarnated. Again...

Ah man reincarnated again?! Where did I get reincarnated to this time, and did it have to be as a baby? I guess I'm getting the true reincarnation experience now, not no immediately getting my first Pokémon or being named by a stupid strong dragon. I guess I will take the win of not having to actually be born, I was just already a baby. When will enough be enough though, I'm tired of reincarnating. I just want my death to actually be my death damn it.

I guess let's try to figure out where I'm at, with the recurring theme being anime it's bound to be an anime. Looking around the room all I see is plain walls and the edges of a crib. That's when i look farther to my left and see another baby in the crib with me.

Man I really gotta get my senses up, after living in the slime world and being able to sense everything around me, it's kind of strange not noticing someone so close. I don't really notice anything too familiar about them, but they are a baby so that doesn't help much.

While I was still in thought I heard the door to the room open and saw a strangely familiar face peer over the edge of the crib. She seems so familiar but I can't put my finger on it.

"Oh? It seems little Kurai is awake, just like little Shika to still be a sleep though." The woman says while smiling down at us. Wow, I wonder if this is mom, first time for everything when you get reincarnated I suppose. However those hopes were dashed instantly.

"Your parents would have loved you Kurai, if only they could be here to watch you grow up." She strokes my head in comfort but I can only feel anger and annoyance wash over at the fact that I couldn't even be reincarnated with parents.

"I'll make sure to raise you just like my own little Shika. I'll make sure you grow to be fine Nara." She continued soothingly. Wait. Nara? Don't tell me. This is the Naruto world?! And with that all the emotions inside of me spilled out in the form of a cry which in turn caused Shikamaru to cry. Sorry bro, but I need this right now.

It's been a few hours since I cried earlier, I honestly can't remember the last time I cried before that. During my Pokémon and Slime world journeys I was always prepared and knew what was going to happen or could prevent it. Maybe that was just the release of the all the emotions I've been feeling all this time. Either way, now that I know where I am I need to start planning and preparing.

Nara's are known for their laziness, intelligence and shadow control, just about in that order too. They don't have much chakra, but they seem to make up for it with great control. I want to say I'll be the first constantly motivated Nara, but with this being my 4th life I'm just not sure I can handle it.

At least I spent the whole last world using different types of blades, so I'll have that experience to fall back on. Also I know what meditation feels like and I should be able to kickstart my chakra. I may not have a lot of chakra but I can at least make sure I have as close to perfect control as I can. I also need to test how strong my low presence is in this world, it would be a huge boon if I couldn't be sensed.

On the other side though, there are quite a few people who would come after me if I couldn't be sensed. Ugh so many things to kill you or want to enslave you. Sigh. I'll just have to cross those bridges when I come to them and hope for the best. I could always die again and be reincarnated I suppose.

2 years have passed and I am now 2 years old. I just sort of followed Shikamaru's footsteps in most things when it came to baby milestones. I did however become potty trained faster than him so yay me. During those 2 years though I didn't just do baby things, I started working on my chakra and testing my presence.

It turns out that my adoptive parents couldn't sense my chakra unless I was circulating it a certain way. So during those 2 years I made sure to get to the point where I'm always circulating my chakra and be able to deactivate it when I want. This way ninja can still sense me, but with my low presence they may overlook me in a crowd or even just not notice if they aren't specifically looking for me.

Comparing chakra between me and Shikamaru I seem to have a decent amount more than him. I'm not sure if this is because I reincarnated or if it's the product of me circulating my chakra since I couldn't sense his until I was able to continually circulate it.

6 years have passed now and we just started our first day of the academy both of us being 8 years old. Me and Shikamaru both walk in with a lazy expression after hearing the hokage's speech. Most people mistake us for twins and I can't blame them because we are so similar it's a little scary. The constant sighs and the zoning out, even our hair is similar with his being tied up while mine sits in a traditional ponytail.

The only thing that truly differentiates us is that I still have my bright blue eyes. I don't know if my parents had blue eyes or if kept them strictly because of reincarnation, but the Nara's haven't said anything about it.

Reaching the first desk we see, we both plop down and immediately lay our heads down in our arms and nap. I haven't been completely lazy while I've been here though, these last 6 years I would stop circulating my chakra so that I couldn't be sensed and I would train. I ran, I worked my body and I practiced chakra control exercises.

It should be said that I can't hide the use of my chakra, people can still sense when I use jutsu. Anything else however they can't, it's like I'm a ghost appearing beside them. I haven't tried it against sensor ninja yet, but I imagine I'll get the same result. Even Hyuga I look like a normal ninja until I stop circulating and then it's just like my chakra disappears.

I only know that because of Hinata, since I'm technically the child of a clan head we have met several times so I made sure to befriend her. After she unlocked her byakugan I asked her to keep it a secret and tell me what she saw when I did it, and said that she couldn't see me it at all. It was like my body was set in a permanent genjutsu that only allowed her to see me if she deactivated her byakugan.

Nice to know and a good thing Hinata is extremely loyal if to a fault, at least I know my secret is safe with her. I also befriended Naruto to an extent, I would invite him to play with and would just be nice to him. I wouldn't say he latched on to me, but I'm probably his only friend that would openly say it.

One good thing about previous life experience is that everything comes pretty easily to me know because I've either seen it before or done it before. Taijutsu is just learning how to fight a certain way and I've already convinced Shikaku to get me a sword when I graduate the academy.

I mostly used daggers in my last life, but I made sure to get familiar with as a many bladed weapons as I could. And since we already get kunai which might as well be little daggers, I figured a sword would be a perfect addition to my low chakra.

Shadow based jutsu has been coming along rather slowly since I'm not technically supposed to be doing yet, so I have no one to teach me. Apparently Shikaku is going to teach us both as we go through the academy. It seems today we are going to be doing series of tests to see where we fall rankings wise and I guess what we need to improve on.

Since I've only been training in secret I won't show all that I'm capable of. The first test was kunai throwing and this and shuriken throwing are the only things I'll allow myself to be better than average. I scored 9/10 on both of those tests, next we had taijutsu sparring matches, but like Shikamaru I just did the bare minimum and then pretended to get beat.

Next was an obstacle course, with one look at it and then Shikamaru who looked at me at the same time, we both shook our heads and then sighed at the sky above for being so cruel. When we had to do it, we both finished with an actual decent time since we took the easiest route which coincidentally ended up being the fastest route. Lastly was the dreaded running laps, technically for me this would be very easy because of all my secret training, but I had the reputation of Nara to uphold. However I also had the wrath Shikamaru's mom to worry about as well.

She said if we didn't do at least 20 laps she would personally begin overseeing our training while we were in the academy. And run 20 laps we did and not a foot more, we still easily outpaced the civilians and kept a nice and breezy pace in the middle of the pack. After this we finally returned to the classroom where Iruka told us our current placements , with me being just one rank above Shikamaru because of my shuriken and kunai scores.

With the first day of school done, me and Shikamaru feigned pain and tiredness so that we could go home right away and sleep. Just to do it all again the next day for 4 more years.

I'm now 12 years old, thankfully the 4 years at the academy flew by and it's now time for our graduation exam. Not much changed with my being here, Naruto is still Naruto and obviously the Uchiha massacre still happened. My impact on Naruto was fairly minimal, besides he turns out fine without my intervention. He's also quite the handful, and while for the most part I'm pretending to be like Shikamaru, Naruto can really drain you with all the energy he has.

The test goes by rather quickly, I easily breezed through the written portion and the clone jutsu was a piece of cake. Meaning I and Shikamaru received our headbands, and walked out to see our parents waiting for us. Naruto sadly still failed, and I could see him sitting on the swing as we all walked off to go celebrate. I would feel worse if I didn't know that he will have his headband by tomorrow.

I can't wait to see who ends up being my Jonin sensei and what team I end up on. As the years went on I gradually started showing more and more of my abilities to make it seem like a realistic growth. I still wasn't top of the class but I was in the top 5 with a combination of my perfect test scores and then above average ninja skills.

For now though I'll just enjoy this time of celebration with my new family. I came into this world feeling bad for myself since my real parents died, but Shikaku and Yoshino really took me in and took care of me. I've slowly started to let them grow on me, and eventually calling them mom and dad didn't feel as forced as it used too. If only I wasn't born into a psychotic ninja world where I could easily die at any time. Sigh, I'll just enjoy it while I can. It's not like I stay dead anyways. Sigh

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Author's Note: Not entirely sure how I feel about this one. This one just felt wrong to write for some reason. I hated skipping all those years, but I also didn't want to live through so many years not doing anything really. That's why I'll do like the show does itself and just do flashbacks for different things.

I'm also not a huge fan of using Japanese honorifics, but it just felt weird not calling them a jonin sensei. Still haven't decided what team I'm going to have him join because I don't know if I want to make 2 new characters just for Kurai's team. I could cut out a main character but I don't think anyone would like that.

Probably will just do 2 new characters that will compliment Kurai's battle style. So maybe a throwaway Hyuga and inazuka, to make an assassin unit, or some cannon fodder civilians. Still haven't decided, I guess I'll just have to see how I feel next time I write.

Oh well 3rd story started, I hope Kurai feels at least a little original in this terribly over saturated fanfic. But I've always wanted to make my own, but it just feels subpar compared to all the ones I've read.

Kurai is definitely not overpowered in this one, his only strength is not being sensed, but he can't use any jutsu himself either. He can also be sensed via emotions, so Naruto will be able to sense him. He's gonna be primarily a Kenjutsu user while strategically using his shadow jutsus to trap and lead his opponents where he wants them. Maybe I'll cheat and Hayate Gekko be his Jonin sensei even though I'm pretty sure he has a different job.

Thanks for reading

-TaediumVitae