Dawn
Novus Mundus
Prologue
Reincarnation.
A concept that has been scrutinized by many and questioned to the ends of the world of and back.
Many say it is simply superstition, and not many people truly believe it, because, well, why should you?
Chances are, it was originally created by some elder who really didn’t want to die, so they invented the concept of life after death, a second chance at life, to patch your regrets and unfulfilled promises.
Though it is not a very realistic or believable thing, the idea behind it is still very compelling. So, what would you do with a second chance?
-
The Fourth Shinobi War ended in disaster.
Yes, the third generation of the famous Team 7, consisting of Hatake Kakashi, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura, saved the world.
And?
Naruto and Sasuke, to finally settle their feud, finally accepted each other. Naruto had metaphorically “brought him back”.
Back to... nothing
At the end of it all, they realized that Kaguya’s last-ditch effort, that final wave of deadly chakra, was never meant for them, which explained how they dodged it so easily.
It was not that she was an inexperienced fighter. It wasn’t because she had run out of energy.
No, they had misinterpreted her intent.
The God Tree, corpse of the Jūbi, lay in tattered ruins, a blanket of marred white scattered across a sea of nothing, but a desolate land ravaged by a war waged against two mad men, an army of chakric creatures and their godly creator.
The army of Zetsu trampled across the now barren land, their white bodies covering the broken remains of the Hidden Villages, the broken Valley of the End, and the hearts of everyone who had fought in this war.
Within the mountains of white lay the mindless creatures that were the corpses of their friends and family, who were now no more than mindless beasts with nothing but intentions of aimless destruction.
They’d won their fight, but lost exactly what they were fighting for, what they were trying to protect.
All four of them stood there silently, taking in everything.
Not a single word was exchanged, their forms lay there, still as time in that moment, and with shattered hearts and lost purposes, all that was left of them were empty shells.
However, not everything was gone for them. They still had each other.
After all, the best way to learn that you had something in the first place is to lose it.
So, even as reality came crumbling down upon them, as the sky fractured in the shape of Lichtenberg figures, as the oceans roared onto the war-torn earth, as the ground beneath their feet shook with fury and broke apart into countless chasms, as the very world broke apart like their hope...
They held onto each other and leaned back into the abyss.
---
And from that abyss, dozens of lights flew out from the fragmenting reality, circling around each other for a sempiternal time, before finally converging together into a new reality.
These lights scattered all across this reality, flying across and settling down upon the many islands inhabiting this vast grand blue world.
A new world. A new adventure.
It is here that the last tale finishes, and the next begins.
Chapter I - Dawn : Dai-nana-han
Uchiha Sasuke
The one once known as Uchiha Sasuke opened his eyes.
Was this the afterlife?
Evidently not, as what afterlife would provide him with an unknown man loosely holding him, body drenched in vermillion that shines under the silver of the moon?
Perhaps this was a test of some sort? Or simply punishment for the wrongdoings of his life?
Suddenly, he felt himself being lifted, by a wide, rough, and steady hand.
The face of a fierce old man came into view, with all black-gray, short, choppy hair, a wide mouth, and a radial aura of power. Dressed in a uniform of snow with a blue shirt and tie inside, and a flowing white cape, he certainly looked intimidating. Said man squinted at him, tapping his chin with his free right hand.
“An orphan, huh?” His hand scratches his head. “Alright, I’ll take you with me. I’ll find out what to do with you later.”
Sasuke was sure that despite being a baby, his face managed to scrunch up into a nice little frown of exasperation.
The man didn’t seem to notice, and simply slings Sasuke over his chest in a tight little bundle and started running.
At this point, Sasuke was quite sure that he was simply reincarnated. There was no other logical explanation, though he supposes there isn’t really any logic to be applied in the first place to life and death.
So, he was quite surprised that without the system of chakra that he is (or was, rather) intimately familiar with, this man was like a bolt of thunder. In just a few seconds, he had traversed at a pace even faster than Sasuke at his peak, tearing past trees and forests at a speed that his infantile eyes simply couldn’t keep up with.
“Bogard!”
They had stopped in front of a large ship, which had a very oddly shaped figure head (was that a dog? And were those crow’s nests dog houses?), and from that ship a voice rang through the night.
“Garp-sama!”
The now named Garp grinned and jumped onto the massive ship with a single leap, turning towards a man with a similar white outfit and a gray fedora. “I found a boy. What do I do with it?”
The man who was presumably Bogard sighed. “Garp-sama, you can’t just pick up children without reason!”
“He was an orphan, alright? His dad was dead in a pool of blood, so I thought I’d save this one kid. But seeing as the entire village was burnt down, he’d had died of hunger on the island.”
Bogard let out a sigh, tipping his gray hat down. “Fine. How about you give him to somebody in Windmill Village? You were born there after all, surely you can find a caretaker?”
“Sounds like a plan. Oi, set course for Dawn Island!”
A distant shout of acknowledgement could be heard.
Garp then examined him closely, letting out an “aha!” when he found a name tag of sorts.
“Uchiha Sasuke? I guess that’s your name. If it isn’t, it is now! Bwa ha ha, who puts a name tag on children?”
What did I do to deserve this mess of a second life?
-
Quite something, apparently.
If the fact that Garp had left him with literal mountain bandits was anything to go by.
Yep. He was dropped straight to a mountain, and entrusted to the bandits of that mountain, instead of the nice little town at the foot of said mountain.
But no, Garp had decided that a bandit lifestyle was better for an orphan than a stable childhood in a small town.
It wasn’t all bad, though.
It seemed that there was no discrepancy in terms of language between the two realities that he knew of. Thus, that made his baby life a lot more amusing and satisfying, when he would hear all sorts of talk that weren’t meant for his ears.
Dadan and Dogra, as the leaders of the bandits were called, were not very adept child-raisers. Dadan was too rough, and often milk would splatter all over Sasuke in a messy fashion, and Dogra was not much better. However, as time passed, they improved, and as did Sasuke’s feelings toward them.
He could see their effort. By being a quiet and compliant infant, he had accidentally won them over. Each day, he could hear Dadan and Dogra discussing ways to better care for him, like a new blanket, a hand-made crib, better milk formulas from a lady in town. Their quiet care touched him, and calls of “Sasuke-chan, time to eat!” and gentle coos went from annoying to mildly endearing.
Despite their status and clumsiness, Dadan and Dogra are the first people that Sasuke has had in ages that he could properly call parental figures (besides for Kakashi, who he ditched a year after he met and only came back to years later, only to die moments after he did). Thus, a careful love was established between these unlikely people, and Sasuke is unsure of whether it’s a good thing or not. However, he’s not one to complain. At least he had a family now.
And he was going to treasure it.
---
A year later, another baby arrived. Sasuke was wandering around the house, as he had just learned how to walk, when Garp barged in with a little black-haired baby.
All three of them were bewildered and exasperated, though Sasuke didn’t let it show, instead openly displaying curiosity at the bundle of baby in Garp’s hands (who he just realized was very tall). Garp laughed at the adults’ expressions, though he sobered quickly.
“This is Ace. Portgas D. Ace. Treat him well.”
Handing Ace over to Dogra, who then took him into the kitchen to feed, Garp saw Sasuke on the ground, and kneeled.
His large hand pats the fluffy black locks on his head. “How are you doing, Sasuke?”
No response. “I guess you are a baby after all, huh?”
He then grinned. “Heh. I’ll probably be back in a few years, and at that point you and Ace should be ready, because I’m going to train you into the ground. You’ll become good Navy men, alright?”
He stood up and left, his cape billowing behind in the wake of his footsteps.
It was at this moment that Sasuke finally saw the words for Navy embroidered on the cloak.
So he was a government lackey? Interesting.
It will be a while before Sasuke can truly get to the bottom of the power struggles of this world, but from what he’s heard from Dadan and Dogra, the World Government didn’t seem exactly pleasant.
Oh well, at least he had a younger brother to take care of now.
-
Ace was an interesting character.
As he grew up, Sasuke noticed that he often distanced himself from others. Whether that was a conscious decision or an unconscious behavior, he did not know.
However, what he did know was that after a talk with Garp one day when he turned 3, this trend multiplied tenfold.
Despite Sasuke helping raise him, teaching him to walk, talk and run, Ace hid from even him, going by himself into the forest every day and coming back late in the evening.
Sasuke was completely baffled by this. What had Garp told him?
And so, on his next visit, Sasuke cornered his grandfather figure. The sight itself was something to behold, a child around a fourth of the man’s height forcing him into a little corner.
“What did you tell Ace?” he demanded. “He’s completely changed, it’s like we’re strangers to him.”
Garp sighed, his gaze downcast. “That’s something for him to know, and something for you to find out. It’s a secret, his secret. So, it’s not my job to tell you, but his.”
Sasuke scowled. “Fine,” he walked away grumpily and angrily.
Another day passed, and another day of evasion. Ace was as withdrawn as always.
Except this time, Sasuke sneakily followed him into the forest. His former life as a shinobi gave him a superfluity of evasion and concealment practice/techniques, so it was no trouble at all to trail behind Ace without being seen.
Ace was surprisingly lithe for a boy his age. He was jumping over creeks, climbing small rock mounds and cliffsides with relative ease.
Finally, Ace stopped. Sasuke was bewildered by the location; it was a giant trash mound. A waste-filled land, full of humanity’s waste. There Ace was, rummaging through the infinite garbage, as if looking for something specific.
Sasuke dropped behind him. The sound caused a quick turnaround combined with an instinctive punch that Sasuke catches with his palm.
Ace saw who it was and scowled. “What are you doing here?”
“Why have you been avoiding us?”
Ace grumbled, “None of your business.”
Sasuke was going to take none of that. “Well, it is now, since I’m your brother, idiot,” he snarked back.
Ace looked up in bewilderment. “Brother?”
Sasuke barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, brother. What else would you call me? A friend? Obviously not, you apparently barely tolerate me from what your actions say. Acquaintance? We live together, and I helped raise you! So yes, we’re brothers, you dumbass! What else do you call someone who you live with who you were raised and grew up with?”
For some reason, this single statement seemed to shake the entire worldview of Ace.
“I have a question.”
Sasuke looked at him dead in the eyes, silent, waiting for the inquiry.
“You know the King of Pirates?”
Sasuke nodded. Gold Roger, the King of Pirates, the most feared criminal in history, was a name that every creature of the world knows of. He single-handedly began the age of piracy that currently runs rampant, after all.
“What would you say if he had a son?”
Oh. Oh, so that’s what it was.
Sasuke got closer to Ace, hugging him. He whispered in his ear, “I would say that I’m glad he was born into this world, because it meant that I got a little brother and someone to call family.”
Ace broke down, releasing the tears he had been holding in for so long, liquid glass streaming down his young face in torrential flows.
He had gone around asking this to other people, hadn’t he?
And the answers that he received...
Memories of a blond, loud, yet unwaveringly kind and persistent soul surfaced, bringing both sweet and painful memories.
“You shouldn’t be alive.”
“It’s your fault.”
“Die, demon.”
“So? You don’t know what I lost, since you never had it in the first place. ”
Sasuke held Ace tight and vowed to protect his little brother from a childhood like Naruto’s. This was his second chance, and he was going to treasure it.
Haruno Sakura
Her immediate thought upon wakening was comprised of two parts.
One: why am I still conscious?
Two: where am I?
Neither was immediately answered.
However, the thought of a second chance soon occurred to her, and that would probably explain the hospital-like setting she was in, and the two people cooing over her, stroking her cheeks, and kissing her forehead. Were they, her parents?
Oddly enough, the female was half fish with a fish’s tail instead of legs, and the man was similar, with a fish tail and human torso.
“Look at her tail! It’s such a pretty pink color!”
“How about Sakura?”
“That’s such a nice name! Alright, Sakura, you’re our first daughter, so live a long and happy life, alright?”
And so, Sakura, the eldest daughter and youngest child of King Neptune and Queen Otohime of Fishman Island was born.
---
It was odd, being a mermaid now. From what she heard while being carried around the island, mermaid tails can split into human legs upon turning thirty years old, but there were rare exceptions with no noticeable pattern.
Her mother was Otohime, Queen of Fishman Island, who was well-known for her kindness and persuasive eloquence in her quest to combat the racism that the folk of Fishman Island experience.
Otohime was married to King Neptune, King of Fishman Island, the former strongest warrior of the island. Together, they made for a great couple that were amazing parents.
Sakura found it ironic how, in her life last, she had the simplest background of anyone. She came from a civilian family, the first to have chakra talent in their entire line, and went on to become a shinobi, teammate to the son of the Yondaime (Fourth) Hokage and the sole heir of the Uchiha clan, both of whom were also incarnations of past powerful shinobi such as the Shodaime Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara. There was no legacy to be passed on to her, no family-feud, nothing. She was just Haruno Sakura, a name which was made famous by her and not her non-existent clan.
Now, in this life, she was the princess of an underwater kingdom, in a brand-new world teeming with fascinating things. Oh, all the medical knowledge and things to be learnt here was simply too alluring, and Sakura could not wait until she grew to a reasonable age and was able to act independently without anyone suspecting.
When she turned one, she finally learned to swim and “walk”. It really was awkward, traversing on land with a tail, but she managed by copying her brother Fukaboshi’s technique.
It was exhilarating, swimming through the ocean without concerns for air. She felt free .
Granted, she wasn’t technically allowed to go too far without a guard, but her guard often slept on duty, so what’s wrong with taking a little advantage of that?
It was one day that she was swimming like this, just outside of the island’s protective bubble, that a sudden strong current started pulling on her. Sakura was still very young, muscles barely developed, and the current easily carried her away.
She started panicking, struggling against the water, reaching for home, calling for help.
“Fukaboshi!” She called for her brother, who was currently on guard duty on the other side of the island.
“Mom!” Queen Otohime was meeting with overland officials in her never-ending quest to immigrate Fishman Island out and above.
“Dad!” King Neptune was in the meeting with Otohime.
A net came out from behind her, and suddenly she was pulled onto the board of a ship.
A ship, that she quickly came to realize, was made for capturing merfolk and fishfolk for auction. There were dozens of fishmen and mermen in cages, all with individual price tags and expressions of hopelessness and anger. Sakura’s heart sank. She was going to be sold.
Tears flowed out, as her captors cruelly grinned and laughed as they recognized the princess of the kingdom.
“This one’ll fetch a pretty price, won’t she?”
“Should we raise her a bit more, and then sell her? She might be sold for more if she were older.”
“Nah. There’re some out there that like children.”
Sakura’s sobs intensified, and mentally, she begged for help.
“Help me! Please! Help!”
Her captors grew annoyed at her incessant weeping and gave her a good kick to the back to silence her.
Great. Her second chance at life was officially now a second chance to be tortured.
But mentally, she kept crying for help. That’s all she was, wasn’t she? A crybaby who could only rely on others to help her, with no real power to speak of. She was still a useless Sakura, with the same-old big forehead and weak body.
But between these thoughts of self-depreciation, her prayers were finally answered.
Something shook the boat. It knocked the boat off course, flipped it around a bit and broke the masts and sails.
And then, any and all light was gone, and in its place was a titanic shadow with sanguine eyes. A lengthy and bulky eel-like body coiled around the ship, its multi-colored scales marring the soft wood. The shadow enlarged as gleams of what were likely fangs shone.
The primal fear for her life that she should feel did not come. Instead, an odd feeling of kindredness awoke, making her reach out towards the titanic being.
A giant sea creature, “A Neptunian ,” she whispered. It came crashing down upon the ship, and in a single bite, ate their captors. In another fluid motion, with a whip of its tail, the ship with all the captives inside, was shot back to Fishman Island at a fast rate, and all Sakura managed to do was mentally thank the beast.
“You’re welcome.”
Was she hearing things?
Oh well, that could be saved for later investigation.
The border guards quickly took notice of the huge commotion, and apprehended the rest of the enslavers while freeing the captives from their bonds.
Moments later, Fukaboshi came rushing over, and all she could do was hold onto her eldest brother, cry out apologies for not being careful, and melt into his sturdy embrace.
She stole a glance outside the bubble, and the Neptunian that had saved her and the others was right there, aiming what was likely a grin in her direction. Then, it dove down, sleek dorsal and pectoral fins held close to its spotted serpentine body, blurring together into a single line that melded into the inky abyss.
Though, she swore she heard a faint call of “ We’ll meet again ” echoing from the depths of the ocean.
Uzumaki Naruto
Uzumaki Naruto woke up.
Wasn’t he meant to be dead?
The pair of hands that caressed his headed and arms that rocked him seemed to be telling the opposite story though.
This wasn’t the afterlife, where a vision of his greatest desire was shown, was it?
Because if so, it was perfect.
The feeling of having family, alive , holding him close was so pleasant that Naruto almost did not care whether it was a dream or not.
Days and days later, he came to accept that this might not be the afterlife, but maybe a new chance at life. It was a jarring experience, to feel that he was completely incapable of doing anything but observing, and so for the first time in years, Naruto was able to truly calm down and soak in the world around him.
Hearing words around him, Naruto slowly began to learn. He was in a land named Wano, a country that was not affiliated with the World Government (the legal structure of this reality) and that was closed off of the rest of world.
He heard rumors of a formerly honorable daimyo that has now become a laughing matter among everyone else (Kozuki Oden, a fellow victim of being named after food).
He heard of a shogun named Orochi, and how he was “saving the country” in collaboration with the Beast Pirates, led by a man named Kaido.
He heard of an energy named ryūō, something that could make normal swords cut steel and fists break stone.
His mother was a coal burner. Each day, she would go chop down trees, burn the wood in charcoal, and carry it down the mountain to sell. Once Naruto grew old enough to talk, she would tell him with a wistful smile of how his father was the most popular coal seller in the capital before a disease caught up with him.
Naruto would then smile back, and double down on his efforts to try and help her as much as possible. For a child his age, he was abnormally strong, and gained a small reputation as a sort of miracle child.
“I wonder if anyone else also came to this world.”
Naruto’s sole goal in his past life was to defend his ideals, for himself and for the ones he cared for.
Now, in a new world, with a tabula rasa , his sense of purpose was lost. There were no people to earn acknowledgment from. No world-threatening evil that he was aware of.
It was the peace that he had wanted.
And the peace that would soon shatter.
When he was four, disaster struck.
The proclaimed heroes of the land, Shogun Orochi and pirate Kaido, turned to tyranny when they publicly executed the unsung hero, Kozuki Oden.
As Naruto heard of Oden’s heroic exploits of how he withstood years of public shame to save their lives, as he witnessed the Hour of Legend in which Oden stood in boiling oil while carrying his nine comrades upon his shoulders, as he saw the death of a brave man, as he listened to the mad and crazed laughter of Orochi, and as he saw his mother get shot by a Beast Pirate in the chaos, he remembered something.
“So? You don’t know what I lost, since you never had it in the first place. ”
I know now, Sasuke.
Although he would not be an avenger, he would be a liberator.
Naruto went into hiding. Kaido and Orochi shall fall, even if it’s the last thing he does. The Land of Wano will know freedom.