The pre-dawn air was cold and sharp, biting at any exposed skin. But for Ryu, the cold was a distant sensation, overshadowed by the fire in his lungs and the relentless ache in his legs. Each footfall was a heavy, jarring impact on the packed earth of the training ground, the gravity seals on his ankles a malicious, constant drag. He was a small, pink-haired blur circling the field, his breaths coming in ragged, white puffs in the dim light.
When his legs could run no more, he switched to push-ups, his small arms trembling under the added weight on his wrists, sweat dripping from his nose to the ground. Sit-ups followed, then squats, each repetition a battle against his own physical limits. He was four years old, but he trained with the desperate fury of a man on borrowed time—because that's exactly what he was.
Finally, as the first rays of sun crested the Hokage Monument, painting the village in hues of orange and gold, he collapsed. He lay on his back in the cool grass, chest heaving, every muscle fiber screaming. He dragged himself to the shade of the old oak tree, his body a leaden weight, and allowed himself a few precious minutes of true rest. This was the brutal reality of his choice. No genius-level talent could bypass the sheer, agonizing work of forging a weak, civilian body into something capable of surviving the horrors to come.
After his breathing returned to normal, he began the second phase of his morning. He sat cross-legged, a fresh leaf held between his fingers. For a week, this had been his singular focus, a maddeningly delicate task. He closed his eyes, molding his chakra, sharpening it, infusing it with the cutting properties of his wind affinity. He pictured a blade, impossibly thin and sharp. He pushed that concept, that will, into the leaf.
He felt the familiar resistance, then a subtle shift. There was a faint snick, a sound so quiet it was almost imperceptible.
His eyes snapped open. The leaf, held in his fingers, was now in two perfect, identical halves, the edges cut so cleanly they looked polished. A slow, triumphant smile spread across his face. It was a small victory, insignificant in the grand scheme of the world, but it was his. It was proof that the impossible could be made possible through sheer, unrelenting effort.
His next goal was already set. He walked to the small canal that fed into the nearby river. The water here was shallow, the current gentle. A waterfall was a dream for a chakra monster like Naruto. For him, with his modest reserves, this was a more realistic test. He stood at the edge, holding his hand out like a knife. He channeled his newly refined wind chakra, trying to project that cutting edge a few feet in front of him, to sever the flow of water. The stream merely rippled, his chakra dissipating before it could gain purchase. He tried again, and again, the process a new and frustrating frontier.
That afternoon, he began his exploration of his second affinity. He sat in his room with a small, unpowered light bulb pilfered from his father's toolbox. Lightning was different from wind. It wasn't about sharpness; it was about volatile, crackling energy. He held the bulb in one hand and placed a finger from his other hand on the metal contact point. He closed his eyes and tried to mold his chakra, to give it the jolt and spark of electricity he remembered from his old life.
He felt a faint tingle in his fingertips, a static buzz, but the filament within the bulb remained cold and dark. He pushed more chakra, trying to force it, but the feeling just fizzled out into nothing. The first day yielded no progress, but it didn't matter. He placed the bulb on his desk. It was a new challenge, a new mountain to climb. He would conquer it, just as he had the leaf.
A few days later, the atmosphere in the Haruno household was unusually bright. Kizashi came home from the market humming, a wide grin on his face.
"You won't believe the news, Mebuki!" he announced, setting a basket of groceries on the table. "It's official. The war is over! Iwagakure has signed the treaty. They're saying it's all thanks to that young Namikaze boy. Minato. The 'Yellow Flash,' they call him. A hero, through and through!"
Mebuki clasped her hands together, her eyes shining with relief. "Oh, thank goodness. Finally… peace."
Ryu, sitting on the floor and pretending to read a picture book, went cold. The words struck him like a physical blow. The war is over. Minato is the hero. The Third Great Ninja War was finished.
His mind, a frantic calculator of timelines, began to spin. Minato would be made the Fourth Hokage. Kushina would get pregnant soon. That meant he had, roughly, two years. Two years until the birth of Naruto Uzumaki. Two years until the night of the Nine-Tails attack. Two years until a masked man calling himself Madara—a man he knew to be Obito Uchiha—would tear his world apart, murdering the Fourth Hokage and his wife and nearly destroying the village.
A suffocating feeling of powerlessness washed over him. He looked at his own small, four-year-old hands. He had learned to cut a leaf. He was struggling to light a bulb. How could he possibly face a man with a Mangekyo Sharingan and control over the Ten-Tails' vessel? A man who could warp through space itself? The idea was so absurd, so utterly impossible, that it bordered on comical. He couldn't win that fight. He couldn't save Minato or Kushina.
The realization settled in his gut like a stone. He was not the protagonist of this story. He was a side character, an anomaly, a ghost from another world with a terrifying amount of foresight and a pathetic amount of strength.
But then he looked at his parents. He saw the genuine, unburdened joy on their faces, the hope for a peaceful future where their son wouldn't have to be a shinobi. He thought of Hana's boisterous friendship and Itachi's quiet camaraderie. He thought of the life he had been given, a life warmed by the love he had craved so desperately in his last.
He couldn't win. Maybe. Probably. But he could try. He could try something. He didn't have to beat Obito. What if he could just interfere? What if he could just be in the right place at the right time to save one life? What if he could warn someone? The odds were infinitesimal, the chance of success a sliver. But a sliver was not zero.
He stood up, his small face set in a grim mask of determination that did not belong on a child. He walked past his celebrating parents and went straight to his room, picking up the light bulb. He had two years. Two years to turn an impossible chance into a reality. The training he had been doing felt like child's play now. The real work, the mad, desperate scramble for power, began today.