The sound of three sharp clacks echoed, and Zhan opened his eyes.
Konoha's main street, inside a narrow apartment.
His eyes met dimness. On the midsummer night balcony, a wind chime swayed gently, letting out a lonely sound.
A foreign soul had descended into Konoha and taken over Naruto's body.
[Ding! System loading…]
[7%]
Zhan's head throbbed violently, his vision filled with a blur of blood-red.
Was he blind?
The pain! Hisss!
It was just playing a game, how did it lead to sudden death? How would he go to work tomorrow?
He was about to finish his internship and get promoted, finally seeing the end in sight…
The pain slowly faded. Zhan opened his eyes. In the hazy light, what he saw was a strange, messy room.
The air carried a faint stench. The walls were covered with old, mold-stained yellow wallpaper. Clothes and books lay scattered chaotically across the wooden floor.
Something dawned on Zhan. He lowered his head to glance at his hands.
His pupils widened. With a cry of shock, he stumbled back.
His hands had shrunk.
[System loading progress: 13%]
A mechanical voice rang in his mind. Fragments of memory stabbed into his brain, making Zhan howl in pain, rolling on the bed.
Voices like crawling ants drilled endlessly into his ears, nearly making him faint.
"That kid, right? So disgusting!"
"I told you not to play with him! Who knows what that freak might do?"
"It was that fox demon that killed the Fourth Hokage."
"Naruto, do you have the Will of Fire?"
"The Hokage is the strongest person in the village, the one who protects us. Naruto, you must work hard to become Hokage too."
"Hokage? What a joke!" Zhan clutched his head in agony.
All around him was darkness. Not far away were two small holes.
Stumbling forward, he pressed his eyes against them and saw people outside, all kinds of people. Their eyes carried disdain, indifference, disgust.
"Get out, you monster!"
"I won't sell to you! Leave!"
"Why don't you just die already? How do you still have the courage to live in this world, you demon!"
Cold emotions mixed with pain surged in his heart. Zhan nearly suffocated under the weight of it. He flipped over, biting his teeth as he pounded his chest, forcing himself to breathe again.
[System loading progress: 17%]
Snapping his eyes open, Zhan found himself lying on the bed again, a panel slowly surfacing before him. He had read plenty of novels and played enough games to roughly understand what was happening.
He had transmigrated, becoming Uzumaki Naruto in the world of Naruto. Judging from the situation, it was still the Ninja Academy stage, with the graduation exam looming.
The only comfort was that, along with crossing over, he had gained a system unique to transmigrators. It was still loading though. What system was it again?
Forget it, any system was better than none.
Looking out into the night sky, Zhan couldn't fall asleep. He turned on the light with a click, the brightness sweeping away some of his unease.
"From now on, I'm Uzumaki Naruto."
He ignored the messy room and foul-smelling desk. No one could blame an unloved orphan for not tidying up. After all, there wasn't even anyone to scold him.
Sitting at the desk, Naruto picked up pen and paper and found he could automatically write in the local language.
He could also understand it. Speaking out loud, he realized he could switch fluently between three or four different languages, though here only Japanese mattered.
Pulling up his shirt, he noticed the Nine-Tails seal on his stomach. A troublesome dual Four Symbols Seal.
From the seal's gap, Nine-Tails' chakra leaked, flowing into his chakra pathways, before eventually transforming into ordinary blue chakra.
Though he could temporarily use it, that was no long-term solution.
After thinking a while, Naruto wrote down a training plan. In this world, only the strong had a voice.
The stronger, the better—it would only help his future.
Then came daily life. Scratching his head, Naruto walked to the mirror. Looking at the young face in the reflection, he bared his teeth in a wide grin.
"To hell with being Hokage!"
Who would want to become that kind of thing, protecting people who despised him? Dream on! Better they all just die. Bastards, trash!
He vented all his pent-up negativity and instantly felt lighter.
Forget becoming Hokage. But living a better life for himself was necessary.
Comrades, the village, the Will of Fire—let them all rot. Living was for enjoyment. Once the System finished loading, he would dominate the village.
Humming a tune, Naruto wrote down his Genin training plan.
"To become the flashiest kid in the village!"
[System loading progress: 34%]
The next morning.
When Naruto woke, the first thing he did was check the loading progress. The cursed speed was like 2G internet, painfully slow.
[System loading progress: 79%]
Yawning, Naruto dragged himself up after barely sleeping. With daylight already breaking, he had no choice but to wash up.
He figured he could nap during his morning ninja theory classes anyway. His classmates already saw him as a jinx, no one cared.
After washing, he even spent an hour cleaning the room.
Choosing clothes, he hesitated. His old orange jacket made him look like some street punk. Wearing it in summer was also hot.
After a moment of thought, Naruto picked a plain black t-shirt with brown shorts, leaving the goggles on the desk.
He wasn't a Genin yet, so he didn't have a Leaf forehead protector.
"I'm heading out!" he shouted into the empty room. No reply came, but he didn't care. He slammed the door shut behind him.
He lived in an old apartment building on Konoha's main street. To leave, he had to wind through several narrow alleys. When he stepped into the sunlight and met people's eyes, his steps paused briefly.
Catching their unfriendly gazes, Naruto shrugged indifferently and kept walking silently through the crowd.
The villagers' faces were cold, their eyes lingering on him with hostility before snapping away.
[System loading progress: 87%]
At the Ninja Academy, Shikamaru lazily scanned the crowd, then stopped, noticing something. He nudged Chōji, pointing.
"Isn't that Naruto?" Chōji paused mid-bite on his chips. "Got beaten up again?"
"Seems so." Shikamaru's dead-fish eyes narrowed. "Those people are too much."
Chōji tossed the last chip into his mouth, crunching loudly.
The two of them swaggered into the crowd, Chōji's round body opening a path. No matter how bold the bullies were, none dared provoke the combined might of the Ino-Shika-Chō trio.
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