Childhood Once More, But With Weapons

She had killed herself because that was clearly what everybody around her had wanted. Therefore, why? Why, instead of going to hell where everyone thought was what she deserved, she had reincarnated?

When she first opened her eyes to a new world, all she could see were the blurry outlines of people and bright light shining from above. They spoke a foreign language, which she recognized as Japanese. Perhaps, she was born in the country of the rising sun?

That belief was soon replaced when she was six months old. Although there were a lot of telltale signs that made her doubt that she was in the same timeline as her previous life such as the less developed technology in the house of her new parents, she ignored it. She did not have the strength to care about anything else.

She would just live like a lifeless doll. She had, at one point, contemplated suicide once more, but she decided against it. She was not willing to go through another reincarnation or go to hell, even if those two things might not even happen.

Her current mindset was of if she lived, she lived. If she died, then she died. She would not go out of her way to live or die. That was up to fate.

When she reached one, she was already capable of walking and a little bit of Japanese baby talk. She could mostly understand what the adults around her were talking about. She thought absentmindedly that babies surely had a brain equivalent to a sponge, capable of absorbing knowledge easier. It also meant that they were more susceptible to influences, whether they be good or bad.

A corner of her mind had a dark thought that it would be easy to brainwash and manipulate such young children like her.

She was a calm, young male baby. Yes, her gender had changed, which caused a small disturbance in her otherwise usually calm emotions. Both of her parents had raven hair and onyx eyes. Their skin were pale and white.

From the handsome and beautiful appearance of her parents, she knew her looks would at least be above average. Unless the genes passed down were messed up or cut off, she should not look ugly but beautiful and cute as a child.

Currently, she was sitting and staring at the ceiling in a daze. She wished time would flow faster as she had nothing to do and had no will to do anything either. In the midst of her ceiling-gazing, a finger poked the side of her belly, causing her to fall on her side.

"What are you looking at, Ren-kun?" A beautiful woman with long black hair tied in a bun smiled at her. This was her mother, Uchiha Emi.

Ren. Uchiha Ren was her name. Uchiha was her family's and apparently clan's name while Ren was the name given by her parents. The name carried the meaning 'love', which ironically, something she did not possess in her previous life.

Still on the floor and not bothering to sit back up, Ren silently pointed at the ceiling.

"Why are you looking at the ceiling?" Emi chuckled, her face was like a beautiful painting, just like the meaning of her name.

Ren stared blankly at Emi, causing her to smile bitterly. "Do you want Kaa-san to read a storybook for you?"

She did not wait for Ren's reply as she picked her up and sat on the couch with her child on her lap. She took the storybook on the small table and opened it to reveal illustrations to Ren.

Ren blinked.

Her mother, who was watching for Ren's reaction closely, noticed this. She gently smiled as she patted her small head. "Finally showing some interest, Ren-kun?"

Ren blinked once more. Seeing that, Emi started reading the story. "Years ago, Konoha was once a barren land, and wars filled the lands. Conflicts were everywhere."

Why was Emi telling her a story about wars? Ren did not think it was a story suitable to be told to children, but that was not really important to her. She continued to listen.

"Despite the raging wars between clans, the First Hokage-sama, Senju Hashirama-sama and our ancestor, Uchiha Madara-sama had become the best of friends. They ended the endless wars and formed an alliance.

"This alliance expanded when other clans such as the Nara Clan, Yamanaka Clan, Hyuuga Clan and Sarutobi Clan to name a few examples, joined. With the First Hokage-sama's Wood Release, houses were built. These events all contributed to the formation of our Konoha that stood strong until today.

"As the Uchiha Clan is one of the founding clans, we carry a lot of pride as well as responsibilities on our shoulders. Especially our eyes. The Hyuuga Clan has a powerful dojutsu, but everyone knows that our Sharingan is stronger than their Byakugan."

In her distorted memories, she vaguely remembered about hearing these names. Even her clan name which she previously thought of lightly now carried weight. She might have heard of these things before in her past life, but where and when, she could not remember.

The only thing she remembered from Before was her being unwanted by her surroundings, which led to her death by jumping off the roof. Other than that particularly strong memory, everything from her name, age, appearance and background were forgotten.

In any case, it seemed like her mother had a slight superiority complex about their Uchiha Clan. Then again, she sensed the same thing coming from her father and the adults that visited their house.

She was still one and Emi was already instilling in her mind that their clan was much stronger and better than the others. Perhaps that was true, but Ren honestly could not care less about clan pride.

Wrongly misunderstanding Ren's dazed gaze on the book as her wanting to hear more stories, Emi took another book to read to her. Of course, the book had insinuations about the superiority and strength of the Uchiha Clan over the others.

As book after book was read and her young infantile mind registered the information, Ren fell asleep.

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On her second birthday, she was strangely gifted with a set of very sharp weapons which were called kunai. Along with the kunai also came a thick theory book about this energy called chakra that was definitely not present in her previous world.

She already had the knowledge that she was no longer in the modern world ruled by technology, but was instead in the world where ninjas were real. These ninjas–shinobis as her parents and the books called them–faced death almost on a daily basis. As the Uchiha Clan is a clan prominently filled with shinobis, and Ren's own parents were both shinobis; it was already fixed that she would be one in the future as well.

A few days after that, she fainted due to a high fever which was caused by a flood of memories. More specifically, her memories from Before. Her high fever had caused her to be admitted into the Konoha Village's hospital and she stayed there for three days before her sickness subsided.

During that period, she finally realized that she was actually in the world of Naruto, a famous manga and anime from her past life. It was something she had invested her time into before everything crashed down and she was forced to take her own life.

This event had changed her outlook and approach on her new life. While she still did not hold her life in high regard, she was concerned about the characters in the story. She found it funny how she treasured fiction characters' lives more than her own. Then again, she was not worth much compared to the characters who would drastically change the world to begin with.

She had also figured out which timeline she was reincarnated in. The skirmishes at the border had intensified and word had it that a war will break out anytime soon. As per her mother's storytelling, the Second Shinobi War had already happened, therefore she was in the timeline where Kakashi, Obito, Gai and the rest of their peers were still kids.

She was not sure if she was the same age as them, but she put that in the back burner for now. More importantly was the thick book she was given as her birthday present.

If she wanted to do something of any significance to the main plot, she needed to start small. First, she needed to really understand the mystical energy that was known as chakra and attain a certain level of strength.

Her unvoiced desire and determination to learn chakra were shown through her actions. She began reading the thick chakra book and proactively asked her parents regarding things she did not know. While she did not utter a lot of words and her face was devoid of emotions, her parents knew that Ren finally showed some semblance of a children's excitement.

On one rare occasion where her father was actually at home and off duty, Ren had tugged on her father's sleeve.

"What is it, Ren?" Just like her mother, her father, Uchiha Hiroto had a beautiful smile which he would only reveal to his family. When dealing with those he was not extremely close with, he was always stoic, just like any other Uchiha.

Ren pointed to a picture in the chakra book she was straining herself to hold. It was a picture of a leaf sticking onto a person's forehead. "Tou-san, please teach me this."

Hiroto nodded and took her to the courtyard where there were trees growing. He took two leaves; one for himself and the other for Ren. He easily stuck the leaf to his forehead and it firmly stayed there.

"This is called the Leaf Concentration Practice. You direct all your chakra to the leaf, using it as a focal point." Although Hiroto used a difficult phrase such as focal point, the fact that Ren would not understand it did not enter his mind for even a moment. From Ren's behavior alone, he knew that his son was quite intelligent. Besides, his son was an Uchiha; that should be reason enough.

Ren nodded before she placed the leaf on her forehead and channeled her chakra to it. She concentrated for a few minutes before the leaf fell down. She furrowed her eyebrows as she looked at the fallen leaf on the ground.

"Good work. However, as your chakra system is not yet fully developed and the amount of chakra you possess at your age is small, it's natural that you could not keep the leaf on your forehead for too long.

"Your concentration is also a bit lacking. Your lack of chakra control is also a factor. Then again, this exercise is to strengthen both your concentration and your chakra control as well. Taking your young age into consideration, I'm proud that you can already do it for a few minutes, Ren. You'll make a great Uchiha." Hiroto ruffled Ren's hair.

Ren nodded and picked up the leaf on the ground to once again do the exercise. The greater her chakra control, the less chakra she would need to perform jutsus in the future. Hiroto stood by the side to observe her for a few moments before moving back into the house. There really was not much to teach about the exercise.

She kept at it until she ran out of chakra and rested to replenish the energy before returning back to the practice. This sequence repeated itself throughout the day until she could keep the leaf on her forehead without it ever falling off unless it was due to her limited supply of chakra.

She had achieved this merely at the age of two, where a child's attention span towards a single thing was short. Her vocabulary coupled with her ability to read difficult books such as the theory of chakra book had earned her praises from the other adult Uchiha Clan members.

She did not pay any mind to this as she strove to better herself. Before she turned three, she had familiarized herself with the grip of a kunai and started to clumsily replicate all of the hand signs. Her desire to learn did not go unnoticed by her parents, especially Hiroto.

It was when she was three that her father came up to her. "Ren, take out your kunai set."

Without a word, she obediently retrieved the kunai set from her room and stood in front of her father. "Good, now follow me to the courtyard."

Arriving at the courtyard, she saw a few dummies with circles drawn on them; they were clearly target practices. Briefly looking at the dummies, she turned her attention towards Hiroto. She took out a kunai with familiarity and with her underdeveloped strength, she threw the sharp weapon from a distance towards the dummy, only for it to not even reach the target.

Ren looked at her hand that threw the kunai. A slight feeling of anxiousness and hastiness rose up before she squashed it down. It would be no good to rush things and to take out another kunai to hit the target. She would only make another fool out of herself for being unable to hit the dummy.

Hiroto nodded in satisfaction. "It's good that you know your limit. While it would be excellent for you to be able to hit the practice target, it is within my expectations that you would fail. While if you were to repeat your mistake just now, I would be highly disappointed in you."

He went to the kunai that was stuck on the ground and pulled it out before giving it back to Ren. "Both your Kaa-san and I believe that it is time for you to start your physical training. However, this does not mean you can slack off in your theory and you should continue to read to further polish your knowledge. Do you understand?"

Ren nodded.

Hiroto ruffled her fluffy hair. "I will be teaching and supervising your physical training while your Kaa-san will be teaching the etiquettes fitting for an Uchiha. Your Kaa-san will also watch over your chakra control practices. We can not have our prodigy be lacking in terms of both capability and behavior now, can we?"

She nodded again. She thought of Obito who was ostracized for his shortcomings and way of conduct that was unusual for an Uchiha; she did not respect the clan. She was of the opinion that the clan's lack of support and encouragement for the poor boy had played a big part in him being a late-bloomer.

"Alright, try throwing the kunai again. The goal is to be able to hit all of the dummies within today."

While she respected the character named Uchiha Obito, she had no intention of becoming a dead-last like him.

Ren gripped the kunai and threw it towards the dummy.