Chapter 3 - New Life

Village of Konohagakure, in a small apartment's room, rented to the academy student Minato Namikaze.

On his bed, Minato Namikaze, 8 years old, 1-week old apprentice ninja, was sitting crossed-legged and closed eyes, trying to activate his chakra.

Tugging on the 'warmth', confined in his navel, he tried to bring it out. 1 time, 2 times, 10 times... Sweat began to build upon his forehead, but he gritted his teeth and persevered. Because activating his chakra is crucial to begin his road on becoming Hokage, and be respected by all the villagers.

Even if he possesses a family name, in the end, he is merely a small orphan, and the villagers don't even pay attention to him. They sing lore for the clan children, even untalented ones. He knew that even if he is charismatic, and well-liked by his peers, in the end without sufficient strength, the ȧduŀts will forever overlook him. So he chose to become Hokage, to prove to them that even an orphan can amount to something.

At the 12th attempt, he began to tire. Opening his eyes, he sighed "Well, I will give my all for the last attempt of the day, and if it doesn't work I will try again tomorrow."

Taking a deep breath, closing his eyes and raising his concentration at the maximum, he focuses all his energy and yanks the chakra harshly.

'Ping' Like a dam broken, all the confined chakra surge through his chakra pathway, making him mȯȧn comfortably. Ecstatic, Minato opened with eyes, and as he was going to jump in joy from the success of unlocking his chakra, a vortex open in front of him, and from it, 2 translucent beings came out and collide with him.

Before blacking out, he caught a glimpse of their silhouettes. The first one looked like him but in his 20s, while the other was a featureless human shape being, who gives the impression of having been refined to return to the pure state that he was at before being tarnished by the experience of a mortal body.

Meanwhile, inside of the young Minato body, more precisely inside of his soul domain, a 3-way battle took place, with only one 'soul' awake.

Minato, 21 years old, was panicking. One moment he was on the battlefield about to kill the Iwa shinobi and hopefully end this senseless war, and out of nowhere a soul collide with him while he was executing the Hirashin no Jutsu, making the 2 of them tumble through space and time. And when he regained his bearing, he was in his 8 years old body, with that same soul, eating his bit by bit, and there was nothing he could do. It was at this time that he regretted not practicing soul techniques like the Reika no Jutsu of Dan, Tsunade's late lover. At least he could have defended himself, but here he was, in his soul form, unable to do anything because he has no access to physical energy, so incapable of producing chakra.

'I can only execute Genjutsu with my spiritual energy, but it does not affect him. I'm sorry Kushina, it seems that my road finishes here'

Bit by bit, Byron soul was absorbing the 2 Minato's soul. It's only thanks to this ability, developed in the black hole and space-time tunnel that he survived. If not for his strong instinct of survival, his soul would have dispersed long ago. But instead, his soul survived by absorbing all sorts of energies in the black hole while being refined by gravity. It's not until a long time later that he will discover that he earned far more than he thought in this mysterious place.

----

The next day, 'Minato' woke up with a pounding headache.

"Argh...what happened?" Nursing his forehead, 'Minato', by instinct, calmed himself and analyzed the situation.

He first looked around for any sign of danger and seeing the familiar surroundings, he releases a sigh of relief.

Still lying on his bed, he tried to recall what happened, and during 30 minutes, all sorts of memories flash through his mind.

"Hahaha, so I did transcend death. Not only that, I even finished in the Naruto universe as a young Minato. Who knew that other universes existed apart from ours. It's truly a fortunate thing that this old me decided to gamble my life on this, if not I will be still in this old body that would soon have returned to earth"

Byron was laughing joyfully, while tears streamed down his face. Not only was he still alive, but in such a young body, and a universe where his dream of finding love without the fear of betrayal could be accomplished. And his side dream of being immortal could too be realized in the Naruto world.

"Mom, your son can finally love someone other than you. Thank you for all the things you did for me, and I hope that your mind rest in peace in the afterlife even if your soul reincarnate"

Like a huge burden was lifted off his shoulders, Byron fully embraces his youthfulness, not feeling inadequate to be 8 years old again. After all, age didn't matter to him anymore, if he played his cards right he could be young forever.

"Let's see, it seems that I am 1 week after Minato entered the academy, so approximately a month before Kushina arrives in Konoha. Oh, I even have memories of Minato till his battle that will have made him famous, eh poor him, he executed the Flying Thunder God at the wrong time and was absorbed by me too instead of being just his 8 years old safe. It could be interesting to see what happened to his timeline, without him being alive a lot would have changed."

"Well, to achieve my dream I need power. And to do that I need to plan. But I don't have time for that now, I must go to the academy. I will write a plan this evening after school. Byron doesn't exist anymore, now I will live this new life as Minato, without forgetting my experience as Byron because it is what shaped me. But I don't have to be as cold as my past life now that I can have power that will make betrayal impossible."

Having made his mind, Byron now Namikaze Minato, exit his bed, freshen up, eat his breakfast and was on his road to the academy, where his new life will begin.