Naruto : Reborn As Sukuna Haruno

[Flash Back]

Death was supposed to be the end.

Naoya knew that better than most. He had already experienced it twice.

The first time had been humiliating. The second time had been unbearable.

Even now, whatever strange state he currently existed in, the memories remained painfully clear. He remembered Maki standing before him after the massacre of the Zenin Clan. He remembered the fury he had felt when she had defeated him as a human. Back then he had still been able to justify it. He had been caught off guard. Injured and unprepared.

There were excuses he could tell himself. Lies he could cling to. Then he had returned. Returned as something greater. A Vengeful Cursed Spirit born from hatred, resentment, and an unwillingness to accept death. He had evolved beyond humanity. Gained power he never possessed in life. Obtained a Domain Expansion, the pinnacle of jujutsu, something countless sorcerers spent their entire lives chasing and never reached. He remembered the confidence he had felt when the barrier closed around them. He remembered believing victory was finally his.

Then Maki had killed him again.

The memory alone made his nonexistent blood boil.

Even now he struggled to accept it.

Toji Fushiguro.

Naoya respected strength. He always had. He would never openly admit it, but he had admired Toji. The man had been a monster. A freak of nature capable of crushing sorcerers despite lacking cursed energy entirely. To compare Maki to him felt wrong. Insulting. Yet reality didn't care about his feelings. She had become exactly that.

Another Toji.

Another monster born from Heavenly Restriction. A woman who had surpassed nearly every sorcerer alive. Worse, she had beaten him twice. The first time as a man. The second time as a curse. Even now Naoya couldn't understand why his Domain had failed so completely.

How was he supposed to know that someone like Maki wouldn't be recognized properly by barriers? How was he supposed to know that the strongest technique he possessed would become nearly useless against her? The more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

Yet anger was all he had. Anger, resentment, and the lingering desire to kill Maki Zenin no matter how impossible that had become.

Then something strange came to his mind. He realized he could still think. Was that even possible for a dead person?

Perhaps a dead curse!

At first there was only darkness. Endless darkness stretching in every direction. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't even feel his own body. There was no pain, sound, or light for that matter. Nothing except his own thoughts. For what felt like an eternity, he remained trapped there with nothing but his hatred for company. Yet eventually he noticed something else lurking within the darkness alongside him. Memories. Memories that weren't his.

At first Naoya assumed it was some kind of afterlife hallucination. None of it made sense. Villages hidden within forests. Children trained as soldiers. People running across water, breathing fire, creating clones, and manipulating an energy called chakra. The entire thing sounded ridiculous. Yet there was nothing else to do. Boredom was a terrible thing. Modern men weren't meant to spend eternity trapped with their own thoughts. So he began exploring the memories one by one.

And the more he saw, the more fascinated he became.

The memories contained too much detail to be fake. Neji's childhood. The Hyuga Clan. The Byakugan. The branch family curse seal. Missions. Training. The Chunin Exams. The sheer amount of information was overwhelming. There were similarities to his own world. Clans obsessed with bloodlines. Families obsessed with status. People born superior and people born inferior.

Yet there were also enormous differences. Chakra. Ninjutsu. Summons. Entire countries built around shinobi villages. Naoya found himself consuming every memory available simply because there was nothing else to do.

He didn't know how much time had passed.

Days, weeks, months, perhaps even years. He couldn't say for sure. Having nothing better to do, he just became more absorbed in what he had to pass his time.

There was no way to tell.

However, eventually he became aware of something else. An energy surrounding him. It felt vaguely familiar. Not cursed energy. Not exactly. Yet it resembled cursed energy enough for him to recognize it.

"Reverse Cursed Technique…" He pondered. He couldn't use the famed and almost elusive art of inverting one's cursed energy to create a positive effect. However, he sure had heard about it. The feeling was just right for this to be Reverse Cursed Technique.

The energy was doing something.

Healing him perhaps? But that shouldn't be possible since he was no longer human the last time he died. He was a curse now, meaning that the life-giving art of Reverse Cursed Technique was actually a poison for him.

Was that why he couldn't wake up and was trapped here in this place?

Was this Reverse Cursed Technique energy holding him back from waking up since he was no longer a human but a Cursed Spirit?

He didn't know.

If RCT was indeed preventing him from waking up, at first he didn't understand why, but eventually he noticed it slowly weakening. Little by little, the energy faded. Whatever process had trapped him was nearing completion.

Then one day it vanished entirely.

Naoya's eyes snapped open.

The first thing he felt was light.

The second was confusion.

The third was relief.

And the fourth was feeling his own body.

Immediately he sat upright and touched his forehead instinctively.

There was nothing. No scar or wound, just unblemished skin.

As for why he was expecting a wound there in the first place, he himself didn't quite know. It was his body's first instinct to look for one.

Before he could think further, another sensation assaulted him. His vision felt wrong. Too wide.

He found himself looking at the front, his sides, and his back at the same time. It was nauseating. Like looking through a door's peephole.

And if that wasn't enough to make him grimace at the sudden change in perspective, then the added detail and vastly improved eyesight did the job.

He could practically see behind himself. Instinctively he activated the strange eyes, only for the world to transform. Walls became transparent. Objects became outlines. Internal structures became visible. Naoya nearly fell off the hospital bed.

"What the hell are these?" he muttered, practically flailing, trying to stop himself from becoming disoriented and falling off.

Before he could figure out the cause of his condition or adapt to the unforeseen circumstances he found himself in, the door of the room opened and a nurse stepped inside.

For several seconds neither moved.

The woman's eyes widened. Naoya's pretty much mimicked hers, though now, having something to focus on, he found his eyes were much easier to control.

The clipboard slipped from her fingers.

A muffled gasp escaped her mouth.

'Tsk… women.'

He scowled in distaste. He knew he was handsome, but did all of them have to give him a reaction like that?

He looked at himself for the first time, trying to figure out what had the woman so distraught, only to realize he was completely naked.

Apparently he was also supposed to be dead.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Naoya Zenin and death didn't seem to get along very well.

Perhaps because Lady Death is, as stated, a woman.

"What are you staring at?" he asked irritably. "Get me some clothes."

The nurse blinked.

"What?"

"I said get me some clothes. Are all women this slow in this world?"

The woman looked horrified, confused, and baffled at the same time.

Naoya simply rolled his eyes.

What followed was several hours of complete chaos. Doctors arrived. Nurses panicked. Questions were asked. Tests were performed. None of it interested him.

The only interesting bits were learning that he had actually been reborn as the same brat whose memories he had watched before.

Neji Hyuga.

In another world no less.

He answered what he felt like answering and ignored the rest, which was the majority of it, to be honest. Eventually they brought in members of the Hyuga Clan. A stern-looking man entered first, followed by two girls. Neji's memories identified them immediately. Hiashi Hyuga. Hinata Hyuga. Hanabi Hyuga.

The first was an A Grade Assh*le. And the latter two were as annoying as those two little brats from the Zenin Clan back then. Or at least that was his impression of them according to Neji's memories.

The room became painfully awkward.

Naoya didn't bother hiding his amusement as he looked over his supposed new family. The expressions on their faces alone were worth it. Confusion. Concern. Suspicion. It almost made him laugh.

Of course he didn't. Even he knew revealing his real identity was a one-way ticket to getting his mind tested by those mind-r*ping clans this village had.

Needless to say, the conversation that followed was a disaster.

Every answer sounded wrong. Every response carried arrogance. Every interaction seemed slightly hostile. Not that Naoya himself wished that. It was simply who he was.

As for poor Hiashi and his two daughters, they were speechless. The boy in front of them surely had Neji's face, but he behaved completely differently.

By the end, even the doctors were visibly nervous. Eventually one of them awkwardly suggested that perhaps the severe head injury had altered Neji's personality. It was a terrible explanation, but nobody had a better one. Hiashi clearly didn't believe it either. The man spent most of the meeting staring at him with increasingly narrowed eyes.

Naoya couldn't care less.

Let them think whatever they wanted.

His priorities lay elsewhere.

This world was fascinating. He possessed a new body. New powers. New eyes. Perhaps even some of his old abilities remained. He intended to find out. More importantly, Neji's memories had informed him exactly who had put this body in the hospital to begin with.

Kiyomi Uchiha.

The girl who had shot him.

The girl who had technically killed the original owner of this body.

A grin slowly spread across Naoya's face.

'Well, let's start with that. I'll see how a kunoichi fares against a Zenin man.'

[Flash Back End]

[Chunin Exam Finals]

Naoya finally learned who exactly he was fighting after having the most frustrating fight of his life… lives handed to him.

'Mai.'

That name appeared inside his mind like a burning ember because that face reminded him of Maki.

He had only come to have some fun, put the girl in her place, and get the needed answers after knowing he wasn't the only one with cursed energy in this world.

But all that was gone the moment he realized who exactly she was.

"What happened? Tell me, how did she kill you? I'm certain she did, right? How else are you here otherwise?" Kiyomi grinned at him.

"I'll kill this b*tch!" he roared.

"Domain Expansion."

xXx

A/N : A little flash back for anyone who was wondering what exactly it happened, what happened.

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