My name was Orochi and I was just tired of fighting. Years on the battlefield fighting over and over again. We take a village and they take it back. Years of watching people I’d taken under my wing die due to bad intel or unlucky fights. Years of killing one person by stabbing and using my musket to blow away someone else. Then picking up their musket to kill the next, then the next. Chaining unfired guns until I was the last standing on both sides.

I was just sick and tired of it and finally on my break from the battlefield I told the Hokage I was going to retire. He tried his best to dissuade me, he said I was necessary on the battlefield and I told him I wanted to settle down and have children. I was already in my forties, people like me just didn’t exist. He finally acquiesce and sent me off.

He called me back two weeks later and I had already expected the betrayal to come. When I heard the breaths of the dozen men hiding behind the walls I rushed at the Hokage and stabbed him in the throat. I was already dead, there was no running away from this situation I’d be hunted down and have to live like a dog for. “Betraying the village.”

I could only laugh. I laughed as the bayonets dug into my body. I laughed as they all thought I was dead. Then I laughed as the paper bombs and daisy chained grenades I had worn as a suicide vest went off killing everyone.

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Cold. I was cold as I floated. I floated down a river and struck something. I should have moved on and been reborn but I clung onto the only thing I could touch out of sheer stubbornness. I felt something happen. The thing had started to break apart but I somehow knew it was a soul. I placed myself into the body of that soul.

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Memories now. Memories that didn’t belong to me came. From my birth I saw my mother. She was beautiful by any sense of the word, goddess came to my mind as I looked at her. Something was wrong though. Words were spoken, the body who’s memories these belonged to couldn’t possibly recall what they said but somehow I knew.

It was like watching one of those picture movies that were invented in my thirties that everyone loved so much. I had only watched the one and didn’t see the point. She bit me then told my father it was poison that would save my life once. She begged my father to leave with me. He fled as a gigantic purplish black snake appeared to challenge my mother. As he did so she grew into an equal size white snake and both fought.

The fight was so destructive we could hear it after they were no longer visible. It was unfortunate but I thought the fight favored the black snake more. I knew that was the last time I would see my mother but it was nice to see a parent care so much for their child. In our village the children were separated from the parents at birth so they could be indoctrinated easier.

More memories. My father ran before my vision flickered as he continued to run then another flicker. He was moving so fast somehow, almost like teleporting but he seemed far slower than the ninjas of my original planet. He arrived at a village before leaving me on the doorstep of an orphanage.

He left me with a special book and message. I saw that the second Hokage at the time took that book from me and threw away the message. The nurse thankfully dug it out and read it out loud so I knew the book was my birthright. It was to be given to me when I was old enough to learn ninjutsu.

A longer period of time. I saw my face in a reflection and noticed the snake-like eyes but it was a face I remembered. It was different, less masculine but this was very similar to me when I was a child. I must have been a charismatic person because the other children of the orphanage liked me. I was quickly adopted and given a nice home for a few years until those parents died on a mission. When I started the shinobi school I knew that this world used chakra in a fundamentally different way. 

In the world I came from you’re taught at a young age to keep your chakra cycling no matter what. You’re beaten in your sleep until you can cycle chakra in it. Cycling chakra strengthens the body. In my world there weren’t many large scale techniques like this one, instead most fights were basic taijutsu and maybe one fire breath to set off grenades before they’re thrown.

That is why the people seemed so weak and slow to me. Basic chakra cycling would put you at double human strength in just a year. By the end of my life I was ten times stronger than a normal human and I knew that the previous world had less than half the chakra. The courses they taught didn’t make much sense to me either.

Why weren’t people tested for their chakra nature and taught basic chakra control techniques. We were taught barely any techniques giving those who had family backing an insane leg up on everyone else. My other self somehow knew this as well and sought more techniques outside what was taught graduating at the top of my class.

He visited his adoptive parents' graves again. A man approached him and talked to him for a few moments before plunging a sword into his chest. I recognized the man. He wasn’t nearly as fat but his face was that of the Hokage of my world. That’s where I entered this body.