Later,
"Take care of this one too, Dadan!" Garp, ever the shameless old man and completely devoid of remorse, shoved the baby into the arms of the stunned woman without a flicker of guilt. He spun on his heel and walked off as though it were just another errand he had checked off his list.
"Huh?" Dadan stood frozen, eyes wide and mouth agape, trying to process what had just happened. She blinked at the baby in her arms for a long, incredulous moment before letting out a weary sigh of defeat, shoulders sagging as if she had surrendered to fate.
It seemed she had fully accepted that her bandit den had become a daycare. This was the third brat. There might even be a forth one after this.
And she did not even get paid for this nonsense! Damn you, Garp!
"You take care of him."
Still half-asleep and uninterested in arguing, Dadan passed the baby off to Naru before shuffling back toward her room, clinging to the faint hope that she could salvage her interrupted dreams. With a wide yawn, she decided to deal with the matter tomorrow.
Naru looked down at the small bundle in her arms. The baby let out a tiny yawn of his own. For a moment, she stared at him in silence, her expression unreadable, caught between exhaustion and disbelief. Ultimately, she was too sleepy to think deeply about anything. Without a word, she turned and walked toward her room.
Balancing the baby with practiced care, she pushed the door open with her foot and stepped inside. Her eyes immediately found Ace, sprawled across his futon and snoring like a tiny lumberjack. The blanket she had tucked around him earlier was now a tangled mess, hanging onto one leg while the rest of him was completely exposed to the chilly night air.
Naru sighed and gave a helpless smile before nudging the door shut behind her with a gentle bump of her heel. She made her way to her own futon and laid the baby down, covering him with her own blanket to ensure he stayed warm.
After confirming that little Luffy was tucked in comfortably, she waited beside him for a moment, watching his peaceful breathing to make sure he had truly fallen asleep. Only then did she tiptoe over to Ace and readjust his blanket, covering him properly, even though she knew he would likely kick it off again in an hour.
Looking at the two of them sleeping so contentedly, Naru could not help but wonder how Ace would react when he woke up and discovered he had gained a baby brother overnight.
By the next morning, her question had been answered. Rather than being annoyed or confused, Ace was positively ecstatic at the prospect of no longer being the youngest. He lit up like a firework, his enthusiasm spilling over as he proudly declared himself to be Luffy's big brother, already bubbling with excitement about his new role.
Naru watched him with a raised brow and a soft smile, her heart lighter as she realized her worries had been unnecessary.
At least for now, the house felt a little more alive.
.
.
.
Again, three years later.
Deep within the thick woods of Mt. Colubo, a lone girl stood surrounded by towering trees and scattered rays of sunlight. With shoulder-length blonde hair, a red t-shirt, and shorts, she could have been mistaken for a child lost in the wilderness. Yet her calmness and confidence betrayed her appearance.
Her steady hands were forming a precise hand sign.
Poof!
A cloud of smoke erupted in front of her, swirling for a moment before clearing to reveal an exact replica. The little girl grinned triumphantly.
The little girl's lips curved into a victorious grin.
"Aha! I nailed it on the first try!" Naru beamed, her voice full of joy.
She had successfully summoned her first Kage Bunshin.
Before the smoke fully dissipated, more clones began appearing, popping into existence one by one. One, two, ten, then dozens more. Soon the clearing was filled with identical Narus, all grinning just as proudly as the original. It was not until the number swelled close to a hundred that she finally stopped, standing with her hands on her hips, radiating satisfaction.
"Alright, you all know the drill. Two hours of training, then disperse yourselves one by one," she instructed firmly.
She shuddered at the memory of the time she had dispelled a thousand clones all at once. The feedback had practically exploded inside her skull, dropping her to the ground as if her strings had been cut. The pain had been unbearable.
Never again.
"Weak," a scoffing voice sneered in the back of her mind.
"Oh, shut it," she replied.
"If you can't even bear a simple headache, how do you expect to defeat that old monkey?"
"A simple headache?" Naru was annoyed. "Easy for you to say since it's not you who have to suffer from it."
"True. Unlike you, I don't need clones to win a battle."
Deciding Kurama was being unusually annoying today, Naru mentally tuned him out. She took a deep breath and approached a nearby tree. Without hesitation, she began scaling its trunk, chakra focused at her feet. Around her, dozens of clones were doing the same, climbing, leaping, and testing their chakra control with single-minded dedication.
At eight years old, Naru had officially begun the rigorous training she had long planned.
Considering that children her age in Konoha began the academy at eight, she thought it was the perfect age to start unlocking her chakra coil. She had already begun some taijutsu training to build physical endurance and stamina. This proved useful, especially since she did not expect that a certain old marine, who she privately nicknamed as the old monkey, would suddenly take an interest in training her.
It was unclear what motivated Garp to decide she had potential as a fighter, but Naru had no complaints. The opportunity to train herself was too good to pass up.
Naru knew Garp was strong. Otherwise, he would not have earned the title as Marine Hero, and rivaled even the late Pirate King. Yet she remained curious about the extent of his power.
So far, she had only witnessed glimpses of his raw strength, such as the time he effortlessly lifted a boulder several times his size and smashed it into oblivion, sending shards flying in every direction. One piece had nearly struck her in the face.
His brute strength reminded her of Tsunade, minus the chakra-enhanced part.
With that being said, if Naru still had doubt about being born into another world before, the lack of chakra from the people around her and her surroundings was another proof that this wasn't the Elemental Nations at all.
Instead of chakra, people here had something called Haki.
She had learned about it from Garp.
The day after her cheap father had brought Luffy to the house three years ago, Garp returned and tested her instincts by throwing sudden punches out of nowhere. Eventually, he suggested she might have awakened something called Observation Haki, much to her confusion.
Seeing her genuine curiosity, Garp explained Haki and its functions and even demonstrated how to use it. To her, Haki seemed like a different version of chakra, boosting strength and senses but with notable differences.
Chakra was a natural energy within every being, both spiritual and physical, part of one's life force. Haki, on the other hand, was not innate. It could be learned through discipline, training, and willpower. It was a tool, not a birthright.
Here, people did not need Haki to survive. It was a choice, an enhancement rather than a necessity.
Naru was not particularly interested in Haki. What excited her was the faint natural energy she sensed around her. It felt eerily familiar, like the nature energy of the Elemental Nations. Its concentration was weak, but it hummed at the edges of her senses.
Could she tap into it? Could she merge this world's nature energy with her chakra and reawaken Sage Mode?
Just imagining the possibility thrilled her. The thought of becoming a sage again filled her with exhilaration.
Garp already believed she was a prodigy for awakening Haki at the age of five. Naru let him believe whatever he wanted. She would never reveal the truth, that she was a reincarnated soul from another world carrying a massive fox demon inside her.
If people attributed her powers to Haki, that was perfect. She would let the illusion cover the impossible truth. Better that than causing Garp an existential crisis.
Being able to use Haki was a perfect cover for her advanced abilities, and she intended to maintain the illusion to protect the unbelievable fact of her rebirth.
...
The tree-climbing exercise was just as effortless as she remembered, though she had conveniently chosen to forget her very first attempt during her initial B-Ranked mission, which had been anything but smooth.
She and her clones had mastered it on the first try, not that she expected any less. Without waiting for instructions, the clones dispersed to pursue other training drills. Most had already been dispelled by the original, while the remaining few wandered deeper into the woods, indulging their curiosity. Some went to the nearby river, practicing water-walking techniques with a kind of ease that spoke of muscle memory.
Balanced atop a solid, sun-warmed branch, Naru gazed at the swirling blue chakra radiating gently from her palm, its glow soft yet vibrant against the filtered sunlight.
"Have you ever thought about it? Why I still have my chakra, or how it is even possible that you are here with me, Kurama?" she asked suddenly, her voice calm but laced with curiosity.
"Why? Are you saying you resent having me around?" Kurama countered, sidestepping her question with one of his own.
Naru gave a helpless smile. "You know that is not what I meant."
If anything, she was grateful to have Kurama by her side. Yet she had to be rational. It should not have been possible that she died and was reborn, not only with blonde hair and blue eyes along with her whisker marks, but also retaining her chakra and her Bijuu partner.
Her chakra might have been some divine blessing, a miracle gift. But Kurama?
"I'm just wondering," she continued thoughtfully. "It is strange that you are here and the others are not."
It was obvious whom she meant by 'the others.'
She had once tried to extend her consciousness to sense the other eight tailed beasts, but every attempt failed. Over time, she had accepted the possibility that only she and Kurama had crossed over into this world.
She had tried to connect the dots, tracing back events from her past life in search of an explanation. But she was not Shikamaru. Her mind did not work with ten-step plans and airtight logic. She could not form a theory that made complete sense.
The circumstances of her death remained clear in her mind. She had lost too much blood after her right arm was obliterated. Her body, already battered and exhausted from the Fourth Shinobi War and her battle with Sasuke, had been pushed beyond its limits. Her formidable healing abilities had weakened drastically. She recalled lying with Sasuke, motionless and bleeding, for what felt like an eternity before Sakura and Kakashi-sensei found them.
By then, it had already been too late for her.
Closing her eyes, Naru let herself drift to the memory of Sasuke and their final moments together. A soft sigh escaped her lips.
Just like her, Sasuke had lost an arm, his left one, during the ferocious collision between her Rasengan and his Chidori. He had been bleeding heavily as well. It had been fifty-fifty. Perhaps Sakura had made it just in time to save him. Or perhaps he had died too. Perhaps, like her, he had been given a second life in a new world.
She hoped not.
The thought that Sakura might have failed to save both of her closest friends was a burden too cruel to bear. Naru did not want to carry that kind of grief.
Yet only Naru and God truly knew her thoughts.
Unlike what others believed, Naru was aware that her friendship with Sasuke had been quite toxic. And yet she had chosen to ignore the ugliness of it, clinging to her belief that he was worth saving.
She had never expected to die young. She had always believed she would live to see peace take root. But it seemed that fate had other plans. She had died and then awakened in a world that was not hers, reborn and granted a second chance.
If Sasuke had followed the same path, then perhaps he also deserved a fresh start, a life untouched by the scars of the past.
Still, a selfish part of her wished he had survived, that he had not died as young as she had. Especially not after finally owning up to his mistakes, shedding the hatred that had consumed him, and choosing a path of atonement.
Naru had always believed in him. No matter how much others judged him, no matter the pain he had caused, she believed redemption was something earned, not given. She trusted that Sakura and Kakashi-sensei would ensure it. They would carry on in her place.
Shaking her head to dispel the memories, Naru bent her knees and jumped down from the branch, landing on the grass with practiced ease.
"Alright! Let's go to the beach!" she declared, her voice brightening as she turned toward a new distraction, ready to embrace whatever this strange world had in store.
...
At a secluded part of the beach, Naru stood atop the rippling water, her bare feet leaving faint, shifting circles on the surface.
Like the tree-climbing exercise, water-walking had taken her no time to master. She and her clones had done it flawlessly on the first attempt, needing only a minute to stabilize. After all, she was an experienced ninja. Failing at something so basic would have been an insult to her identity as a proud shinobi.
Now all her clones were gone, leaving her alone with the vast ocean.
Naru gazed at the endless horizon, her eyes drawn to where the sky met the water, and her mind wandered. Did mermaids really exist in the Grand Line as the books claimed?
Was there truly a sky island floating somewhere above the clouds?
Her curiosity had been sparked by the many books Garp had brought for her. True to his word, her grandfather had hauled back a small mountain of treasures from the Grand Line, everything from thrilling adventure tales to detailed tomes on geography. Each book was a window into this strange and wondrous world she now inhabited.
Thanks to Garp's enthusiastic storytelling and eclectic book collection, Naru had begun to piece together the truth about this world. A world that held marvels such as floating islands, an underwater kingdom, sentient sea kings, people from countless races, and creatures that could rival even the Kyubi in terror, though Kurama always scoffed at that last claim with an offended flick of his tail.
As she absorbed those fantastical tales, something inside her stirred. A flutter of wonder. A spark of anticipation.
Before, she had not known what she wanted from this second chance at life. But now, she had a purpose. A reason to move forward. A desire, no, a need to explore this vast world with her own two feet and eyes.
A wide grin blossomed across her face as she took a step forward, each movement sending playful ripples across the water. Then another step. Then another. Soon, she was sprinting across the ocean's surface, laughing with pure exhilaration as the wind tangled in her hair and the waves danced at her heels.
She ran farther and faster, her smile uncontainable, her heart soaring with a freedom she had not felt in what seemed like ages.
"Kurama! I've decided!" she shouted into the open air.
Inside her mindscape, the great fox lifted his head, ears twitching with curiosity.
"One day, we are going to travel the world together!"
Kurama did not reply right away. He just gave a faint, knowing smile. 'You should've made this decision a long time ago.'
But he did not voice it. He let her happiness carry them both forward.
For the next hour, Naru let herself go completely. She laughed, leaped, splashed, and danced across the water like a child unchained from worry. She leaned over to peer into the ocean's depths, marveling at the colorful fish and strange sea creatures swimming below her feet. She flipped, twirled, and shouted gleefully at the sky.
There were no words to fully describe the sensation overtaking her. If she had to name it, it would be that, for the first time, she felt what it meant to be truly free.
Free to exist. Free to live. Free to be.
It was liberation in its purest form.
Standing in the middle of that endless blue canvas, Naru came to a quiet but powerful realization.
She no longer had to be what others wanted her to be. She did not have to live up to anyone's expectations. In this world, no one was expecting anything from her.
Why?
Because here, she was nobody.
She was just an ordinary girl from the weakest sea in the world.
And that was the greatest blessing of all.
With no title, no reputation, no destiny tied to ancient prophecies or godlike ancestors, she was free to do as she pleased. There was no village demanding her strength. No peers needing her protection. No spotlight chasing her every move.
She was no longer a Jinchuriki.
The concept Bijuu did not even exist in this world.
Which meant there were no madmen plotting to kill her. No terrorists threatening the people she cared about. No rogue Uchiha with revenge burning in their bones. No masked traitors playing gods. No moon princess awakening to reclaim the world and destroy everything in her path.
None of it.
And even if this world had its own fairshare of chaos, pirates and criminals alikes, so what?
Let the marines handle it. Let the world deal with its own madness.
She was not here to be a savior or a scapegoat. She was done being a pawn in someone else's game.
This time, it was her turn to decide what mattered. Her chance to live as she wished.
Once upon a time, she had been willing to give everything, whether it was her time, her effort, her blood, her very life, for the village she loved. That was what it meant to be a shinobi. That was the creed she had lived by.
She had no regrets. Her sacrifices had meaning. She had protected those she loved.
But that chapter was closed now.
Uzumaki Naru's journey had reached its end.
And so began the tale of a new soul.
This was the beginning of Monkey D Naru's grand adventure.