The night was quiet, save for the occasional rustle of leaves outside his window. Naruto sat cross-legged on the floor, a brush in hand, the scent of drying ink thick in the air. His latest work was spread out in front of him—an old memory, something from a life long past. A crocodile, large and ancient, basking in the murky waters of a river during the Clan Warring Era.
He had been that crocodile once.
Back then, the rivers ran red with blood, human corpses floating aimlessly as shinobi waged war on each other. He had lurked beneath the surface, patient and undisturbed, watching with cold reptilian eyes as bodies fell, their struggles ending in an instant. It hadn't mattered to him who they were or what their reasons had been. He was just another predator in a world that did not care.
But humans… humans were always so complicated. They never just killed for food. They killed for ideals, for grudges, for revenge. And sometimes, they killed for stupid reasons—like believing that crocodile skin would make for good shields.
That was how he had died in that life. Some wandering shinobi had mistaken his armored hide for something valuable, something that could stop kunai and arrows. They had hunted him, thrown jutsu at him, and eventually, one of them had managed to pin him down long enough to slit his throat.
It had been such a waste. Not even a week later, they had discarded his hide when they realized it wasn't as durable as they had hoped.
Naruto dipped his brush in ink, adding more depth to the scales in his painting. The eyes—he focused on the eyes, making them deep and old, the kind that had seen far too much and cared too little. He had lived so many lives, but humans… humans never changed.
They fought, they killed, they justified it all with words that meant nothing.
And now, here he was, a human again. A shinobi, no less.
The irony of it all didn't escape him.
He sat back, looking at his work with a critical eye. The crocodile was nearly complete, its thick body half-submerged in the inky water, ripples surrounding it like whispers of old battles. The brush strokes captured the stillness of a predator waiting, but also the weight of something ancient and tired.
He sighed, setting the brush aside.
It was late. He should sleep.
His body still remembered the habits of nocturnal creatures—owls, panthers, bats—lifetimes spent awake under the cover of darkness. But right now, in this life, he was human, and humans needed sleep. He wasn't going to let himself develop bad habits just because his soul had been restless for thousands of years.
Stretching, he stood up, wincing as his legs tingled from sitting too long. He cracked his neck, yawning as he moved to his bed. His mattress was thin, his pillow lumpy, but he had long since stopped caring about comfort. Compared to some of his past lives—being a rat, for example—this was luxury.
He lay down, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow would be another day of pretending to be a normal human, a normal shinobi. Missions, training, teammates who didn't know who or what he truly was.
His eyelids grew heavy, and he let himself drift, the echoes of his past fading into the quiet hum of the present.