Birth of the Forest

Birth of the Forest 3.

It was the day after Team 7 confronted Zabuza. A day after Naruto drove Zabuza back effortlessly and ignited suspicion in Kakashi's mind.

Naruto sat at the shore of Wave country, the wind ruffling his hair. He waited for sunrise and Kakashi with a calm look on his face.

He had thought long and hard as to what to say to Kakashi and decided upon a course of action.

Since the awakening of his previous life, he had given himself little time for self-introspection. He had created for himself an illusion of normalcy over the months, and his deceptive mask was beginning to seep into his true personality. As if remembering a previous life, that too his life as the Shodai Hokage would ever be normal.

The ease with which he had forced a supposedly A-rank criminal to flee forced him to truly confront his awakening. There was always a niggling doubt in his mind that he had gone mad. But the fight with Zabuza had erased that doubt forever, even more so than the tussle with Kakashi a month ago.

Thus he had finally asked himself the important question.

Who was he, truly? He did not think like the old Naruto anymore. No, he had lived and lost too much for that, even if only in mind and another life.

The old Naruto was a boy who was starved for affection, cast out and abused by the very populace he was sacrificed to protect. So he put up a bright front and drew attention to himself, seeking to convince himself that he was a normal part of a normal society.

The truth hurt, so he had shielded himself with a lie. It was the thinking of a child.

Ever since he realized his previous life, things got more complicated. He had grown into the experienced and the highly cultured mind he had developed as Hashirama rather abruptly.

During the months he spent sorting the two lives he had lived, he was flitting between the personalities he possessed during this life and his previous. He knew that was not healthy, and that he was developing a psychological disorder.

Luckily, Senju Hashirama also knew a way to treat this disorder. He used to be the foremost medic of his age, after all and had a working knowledge of psychology.

Thus he had come here to the quiet shores of Nami to meditate and accept himself, to stop just using his life as Hashirama. He was here to become the person he used to be as Hashirama.

Naruto's life was too melancholy to be dwelt upon. The scars, mental or physical, endured during childhood went deeper than those gained as an adult.

They healed faster as well, but he was denied the innocent forgetfulness and forgiveness of a child. No, he was forced into the thinking and strength of his legendary previous life and that had changed him in unexpected ways.

Senju Hashirama, despite his life and losses was extremely strong. Both as a shinobi and as a man.

He had taken all the challenges life threw at him with fortitude and cheerfulness, and he was extremely easy going.

He had refused to give in to the dark side of a Shinobi, strongly remaining a beacon of solace and hope to the village he had founded.

He was the light of Konoha, an unassailable force that kept the village strong and prosperous. A guiding force of mercy and compassion.

Naruto on the other hand knew little happiness during his childhood. Stripped of parents, love and forced to survive in a cold and hostile village. He had developed a sad and melancholy view of life, and was considerably confused and angry.

He now drew solace from his life as Hashirama, the love Hashirama had in his life was enough to heal the hatred in Naruto's. He would stop letting this life's trauma darkening his true self.