Chapter 1
Poseidon charges at Izuku, and his inevitable death, with a smile on his face for the first time ever, finally unburdened by the perfection that he has been shackled with for his entire life. He starts to move his arm, aiming to impale Izuku one last time, and then, nothing. He doesn’t even get to hear the name of the attack that killed him.
And then, suddenly, there is light, and he finds himself being held.
“Step away from the Jinchuuriki, Hokage.” A deep voice says, drawing Poseidon’s eyes to the man that’s holding him. He frowns as he sees the mask, committing it to memory. He can sense that the blonde-haired man that the masked one it speaking to is exceptionally powerful, even moreso than he was before dying, so if the masked man is capable of shocking even him then he must be a serious threat.
“Now now, let’s all calm down here.” The blonde says, attempting to deescalate the situation.
“I am perfectly calm.” The masked man says before, realizing that the blonde isn’t going to move like he told him to, he tosses Poseidon into the air.
“Naruto!” The blonde yells as he leaps to catch Poseidon.
‘So, that’s my new name, then.’ Poseidon Naruto thinks as he makes a mental note to start referring to himself by that name.
Naruto’s eyes are then drawn to the strange pieces of paper lining the blanket that he’s wrapped in, which are making a hissing sound. The blonde man notices at the same time and immediately pulls Naruto out of the blanket before somehow teleporting both of them to a forest. The man does a strange handsign, and a clone of him appears.
“Hold Naruto, I’m going to save Kushina.” He orders, before taking off.
Naruto remains unresponsive to the fools sneering at and mocking him, focusing solely on the book he’s reading, which is describing chakra and its applications. He no longer believed himself perfect due to his loss to Izuku Midoriya, so he was working to bring his knowledge as close to perfect as possible until his body was mature enough to train while minimizing negative consequences.
Once he finishes the book, Naruto sets it down and picks up another one, this one being a beginner’s guide to forging. He was going to need to make a new trident. After all, his original one hadn’t followed him over to this life. Subconsciously, he hoped that Izuku Midoriya had accepted it when Proteus offered it to him.
“OI, BRAT, STOP IGNORING ME!!” A drunken man yells, causing Naruto to direct a minute amount of attention to him.
Naruto would’ve killed the man, but his body is currently far too weak to do so, and he has not unlocked his Chakra yet. So instead, Naruto picks up his books, and turns to leave, dodging the rocks that the man throws at him as he walks away.
Naruto looks at the small piece of paper in his hand, which he had ‘liberated’ from a sleeping Chunin. Then, after taking another look at the book on chakra types to confirm what he needed to do, he channels a small amount of his Chakra into it, causing it to split into 4 pieces, with each of those pieces turning into water.
‘Water and Wind.’ Naruto thinks to himself, before turning back to the book and flipping through the pages until he reaches the page that describes nature combinations. ‘Water and Wind make ice, so with both I should be capable of utilizing that.’
Just as it had in his first life, manipulating water came as easily as breathing to Naruto. Wind manipulation was harder, but he got the hang of it in a few days. Ice, however, was a different story.
‘I have mastered Ice Generation.’ Naruto thinks. ‘But why can’t I manipulate it like I can wind and water? Do I need handsigns? I didn’t for Water and Wind, so why would I for Ice?’
Nevertheless, Naruto decides to use handsigns as a test, and it works. The more handsigns he uses, the easier it becomes. And so, over the next couple of months, he works on perfecting his ice manipulation, minimizing handsign usage as much as possible in an attempt to master it to the point that handsigns become unnecessary.
“Shit shit shit, they spotted me! I need to get out of here fast!” A man says while running through the forest, a sack over his shoulder. Said sack is struggling against him.
Eventually, he reaches a river, where a blonde boy is standing in the middle of it, ice surrounding him and floating in the air.
‘Konoha’s jinchuuriki!’ The man thinks to himself, realizing that the boy matches the description given to him. ‘He’s an Ice user! I’ll get paid double, or even triple, if I bring him back too!’ He exclaims mentally, before moving to grab the boy, and falling dead with an ice spike through his head.
“Trash.” Naruto says, looking down at the dead man, before opening the sack that he was carrying, and seeing the bound and gagged form of Hinata Hyuuga.
“Step away from her, Uzumaki.” A voice says from behind him, causing him to turn to face the speaker, seeing that it’s Hiashi, Hinata’s father.
Naruto complies, allowing the ice spike that killed Hinata’s kidnapper to melt.
“I thank you for your help, Uzumaki, but do refrain from killing when possible. I had intended to interrogate him after catching him.” Hiashi says, causing Naruto to nod before leaving, having decided that he had trained enough for the night.