The living room filled with the sound of kunai clashing and dramatic jutsu names being shouted. My grandkids sprawled on the floor, eyes glued to the TV. On screen, a yellow-haired kid in an orange jumpsuit yelled about becoming Hokage.

"Gramps, isn't Naruto awesome?" Tommy, my youngest, grinned up at me.

I chuckled, ruffling his hair. "Sure is, kiddo. Though I'd hate to be his neighbor. All that shouting..."

A sharp pain lanced through my chest. I clutched at my shirt, breath catching. The room tilted sideways.

"Gramps?"

Tommy's voice sounded far away. The pain intensified, a vise grip around my heart. I tried to speak, to tell them to call 911, but no words came out. Just a strangled gasp.

The world faded to black.

I always thought dying would be scary. It wasn't. It was more like... falling asleep. The pain receded. The darkness deepened. And then...

Nothing.

Until there was something.

Sensation returned in a rush. Sound hit me first – muffled and distorted, like I was underwater. A rhythmic whooshing, punctuated by distant, garbled voices.

Pressure. I felt squeezed from all sides.

I tried to open my eyes, but everything was a blur of indistinct shapes and too-bright colors.

And the smells. God, the smells. Overwhelming. Antiseptic sharpness mixed with something metallic. Blood?

What the hell was going on?

Panic set in as my mind tried to make sense of the sensory overload. This wasn't right. I was dead. I'd had a heart attack watching anime with my grandkids. I remembered that clearly. So why was I... experiencing things?

The pressure increased. The muffled sounds grew louder. A primal instinct took over, and I felt myself moving. Pushing. Being pushed.

With a final, intense squeeze, I was suddenly... free?

Cold air hit damp skin. The sounds sharpened, no longer muffled. Voices. Excited voices speaking... Japanese?

My vision was still blurry, but I could make out looming shapes. Giant faces peering down at me.

What. The. Fuck.

I tried to speak, to ask what was happening, but all that came out was a gurgling noise.

My body felt wrong. Small. Weak. I tried to lift my arm and managed only an uncoordinated flail.

No. No, this couldn't be happening.

A face moved closer. My vision focused for a split second, and I saw fierce eyes. Familiar eyes. Red, fang-like markings on cheeks.

It hit me like a sledgehammer.

I knew those markings. I'd seen them countless times, watching Naruto with my grandkids.

Inuzuka clan markings.

Holy shit.

I'd been reborn. In the Naruto world. As Kiba fucking Inuzuka.

The existential crisis that followed was inevitably cut short as my infant body decided it had had quite enough of this rebirth business.

I opened my mouth and wailed.

It was a strange sensation, letting out that cry. Part of it was genuine distress – the disorientation, the sensory overload, the sheer what-the-fuckery of the situation. But there was also a calculating part of my mind, the part that remembered being an adult, that knew babies were supposed to cry.

So I did. I cried with the full force of my tiny lungs, a sound filled with confusion, fear, and just a hint of intentional performance.

As I was wrapped in a soft blanket and placed in waiting arms, that calculating part of my brain was already whirring. I'd been given a second chance. A chance to live in a world I'd only ever seen through a screen. A world of ninja and chakra and terrifying, incredible possibilities.

But also a world of child soldiers, of war, of monsters sealed in human containers. A world where a single misstep could mean death – or worse.

I'd need every ounce of my adult experience and every scrap of my knowledge from my past life if I was going to survive. No, not just survive. Thrive.

Kiba Inuzuka was here. And he had no intention of being just a side character in someone else's story.