Thirty-two-year-old office worker dies in his sleep and wakes up as a ten-year-old prince in the Land of Grass.
The world is the Naruto universe. The time is fifteen years after the First Shinobi War. The Second War is looming, and his small, resource-poor nation is sandwiched between the great powers of Iwagakure and Konohagakure.
His new body is weak, his father is a puppet of the Council of Elders, and the original prince had no talent for chakra. By all accounts, he should be nothing more than a political hostage waiting to be crushed.
But the transmigration awakened something dormant inside him—a strange power he calls "The Forge." With it, he can copy, extract, fuse, and store almost anything. Living things without consciousness. Chakra itself. Even, perhaps, parts of himself.
As the great villages sharpen their knives and the Council of Elders scrambles to minimize the damage, Arata must navigate noble court intrigue, hidden conspiracies, and his own desperate need to survive. He has no grand destiny, no legendary bloodline, and no prophecy to save him.
He only has a second chance, a dangerous power he barely understands, and the will to use it before the shadow of war falls over the Land of Grass.