I died.

As simple as that. It wasn't an accident. Nor was I murdered. I was just unlucky. I had cancer. Lung cancer to be exact. The funny thing was, if you have that type of humor at least, that I had never smoked, ever. I had never tried and never intended to. But fate's a bitch, it seems.

So, I lived for three years on a constant pity party. My family suffered, my friends suffered, everyone that was relatively close to me entered a depressive mood with just seeing me. It was maddening, seriously. I was going to die anyway, wasn't that enough? Apparently not, I had to see the sadness and hurt in their expressions every single time.

Don't get me wrong, at the start it was somewhat comforting that they cared so much. But as time passed it just made me sick. No pun intended.

So, I distracted myself. I dove face first into books after an aunt of mine bought one for me. And so, it started, my addiction to any type of entertainment. Months passed with my head buried in books, mostly fantasy but sometimes I chose something else just for a change.

After that came tv programs, from cartoons to normal series, films (or movies, whatever floats your boat) and even documentaries. After that I delved into anime after seeing Naruto. Naturally the next step was manga and their Korean and Chinese counterparts. As I kept going deeper and deeper, I ended up reading Light Novels. And I stayed between all those options until what was my last year of life started. That's when I took my last step into the abyss.

"FANFICTION"

Even I don't know how I ended up in that God forsaken place. But I did and I loved every second of that hell hole. Well… not every second. Some people have a couple of problems in the head. I mean, I get it, some people are into Harry x Draco. It's ok. I don't like it at all, but it's ok. However, when you realize that there're people that write Harry x Snape you understand that there's not something like too much for people. There's no limit for humanity's imagination, for good or bad. Bad in this case, if you asked me.

And like that in a couple of paragraphs I described what were my escape mechanisms. My only breath of air on the sea of pity that surrounded me. But I had a time limit and I reached it eventually. I was kind of sad that I wouldn't get to know how a lot of stories ended. As for everything else, well. Three years had made it so that I had tied all the knots. I had had long chats with every family member and friend that I could, more than once with most of them. Everything that had to be said was told.

People must have thought I was crazy with how calmly I took to my death. But really, what was I supposed to do? Cry to sleep every day and make things worse for everyone? Nu huh. There were better things to do with my time. Like watch videos of rats fighting for food with Linkin Park music. That was worth every second. I did cry myself to sleep the first month or so, I'll admit.

They could also have thought that because sometimes I chuckled to myself thinking that some ROB would take me to another world, preferably one from an anime or something. But alas, truck-kun didn't think I was worthy of being a chosen one apparently.

So, I died. There was nothing spectacular about it. There was no me seeing the light or feeling my soul leave my body. There was no doors of heaven or stairs to hell. Nothing. Everything just was and then everything just wasn't. Like when you fall asleep. You don't even notice that you do but you obviously do.

Except… I noticed. Because I was very much aware of the nothingness that surrounded me. It wasn't quite the darkness that was described sometimes. Or maybe it was. It was a bit confusing.

It was dark, yes, but I saw… can you see without eyes? I didn't even know if I had eyes or not. I couldn't tell, really. Back to the point. It was like there were different colored lights everywhere, but when I tried to focus on one it was only darkness. All lights where dark in color, barely noticeable from the pitch-black background.

And like that time passed. Nothing happened. I could only do what I had done every time I was bored to death (pun intended). I started imagining what this or that story would continue as, or maybe thinking of an 'original' story of sorts.

Obviously, none of them were truly original. It just ended up being a mish mash of ideas stolen from others and put together in something that felt awesome. And obviously, I was the main character. Because, I had to feel awesome somehow.

Eventually, I run out of ideas and stories. So, I just stared at the blackness and tried to see the lights. At some point I started to think those were other souls, but I could never confirm it. It was an interesting, if not disturbing, observation to do. Didn't really change anything for me anyway, so I pushed that out of my head, even though I didn't have one.

And before you say it, yes, I felt pretty stupid making Brook jokes now and then. I did kind of understand why he did them though. It was a way to deal with it. You could either cry or laugh about it. I decided to laugh. Not sure I could cry anyway, as I didn't have eyes.

All this continued until a thought crossed my mind.

'Will I be here until my mind breaks and disappears?'

Even I couldn't take that in stride.

Time passed as that thought came back more and more.

[}-o-{]

[You have been chosen]

I would have jumped in surprise as that message appeared in front of me, but… well, you know the drill. I stared at the square that contained the words for a minute or two, although, for all I know it could have been hours or days. It looked just like an open scroll would and had the words written in black.

After that analysis was done the darkness that had surrounded me for who knows how long started to change. Little by little it changed to a blinding white that ate everything else. Soon, there was only white.

And when the white disappeared, I woke up.

[Welcome]

"Wake up, Eiji!" I felt something hit my head and I instantly sat straight on reflex. What greeted me was the sight of a classroom with the teacher looking thoroughly pissed at me and the rest of the class snickering and giggling.

"Eh? Huh?" I said intelligently and everyone started laughing as the teacher's eye twitched. What on earth? I blinked.

"I'll let it slide because it's your first time. Just don't turn into a Naruto." I heard a shout of protest at that but the teacher turned around to continue the class. I didn't hear a word of what he said. I was still sitting there, stunned.

What the hell was happening? My hands balled into fists. I felt my fingers, all of them. My palms. I felt myself resting against the wood of the chair. My arms on the desk. I was seeing things. All this was a bit too much for my stimuli deprived person. How long had it been since I had merely breathed? My eyes widened.

I was breathing. And it wasn't any type of breathing. I was breathing well. It had been so, so long since I had been able to breath without difficulties. It was like the cancer… was gone. My thoughts seemed to freeze at that thought and it held the full focus of my mind for what seemed like hours, though, it couldn't be.

Still relishing in the fact that I could feel, see, smell, I thought about the situation. I was in a class. A class that I had never attended. I had never been to a classroom like this. And I was pretty sure I had never had a classmate named… Naruto…

'Oh, no. Oh, HELL NO!' And surely enough, as I turned to the side, I saw a short scrawny boy with tanned skin and spiky yellow-blond hair. I gulped. 'Oh… come the fuck on, couldn't it be something fun like Pokemon instead of freaking Naruto where everybody and their mother can kill people with three hand signs at the very least?' That's what a part of my mind complained about.

The rest of it was just trying to wrap itself around the situation. Of course, I had read reincarnation stories and the like. A quarter of the fanfictions were like that for crying out loud. It didn't make it any easier to process though. I mean, who in their right mind truly believed they would get reincarnated and in a… 'fictional'… story at that. What the actual fuck?

As my mind felt like shutting down it drifted off back to the class. It was being given by none other than Iruka, I realized. He seemed to be introducing subjects that would be seeing at a later date. It seemed like the kind of thing to do in the first day. At that my eyes darted around the class searching for the 'main cast'. Everyone was there.

From I-totally-don't-brood-to-look-cool Sasuke to I'm-not-creepy-at-all Shino. They all seemed a bit different than canon. Was I in an earlier year than canon? Or was it just the start of canon's last year of the Academy? I distractedly wondered.

"Now class," Iruka started after finishing what felt like a first class of introductions. "We'll go outside for the physical training."

"Hell yeah!" Shouted the excited pair of Naruto and Kiba. I numbly walked with everyone else. Fortunately for me, nobody seemed to take notice that I didn't seem to know how to walk for a couple of seconds. It felt really strange to do so after so long.

It was like that moment in which you take a pen after not writing all summer and suddenly you feel like you don't even know how to use it. I was disturbing to realize that I had forgotten how to walk. How long had it truly been…?

Soon enough we were standing in a large open area. It seemed to have a path that we would probably use to run, an open space that probably was used for spars or normal physical conditioning, a little further away, outside the running course, was what seemed like a place for target practice and then there was the monstrosity that was the obstacle course in the middle. It looked like something that would get people killed. Knowing the shinobi world. It was a possibility.

"We'll start with some laps around the training area." Iruka said and I took solace in the fact that I wasn't the only one to sigh in relief. Most of the civilian (or at least not main cast people) had done so.

"Don't worry, you won't be doing the obstacle course until next year."

There were more sighs at that and even some complains from Kiba. Meanwhile, I was just frowning in thought. So, it seemed that I was at least a year early, maybe more. I had never been good at reading people's ages. "What are you waiting for? Start running!"