In the 39th year of Konoha, the Second Great Ninja War was drawing to a close. Although skirmishes still broke out here and there, the dawn of peace could already be seen.
Whether it was the shinobi rushing across the land or the civilians within the village, they no longer carried the same heavy worries as before. On their faces was the calm confidence of victors.
The good news was that, at last, the war had begun to show signs of ending, and the people of Konoha felt hope returning to their lives.
Mito Uzumaki, seventy-five years old, still cast her shadow over the nations.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, forty-eight, had firmly consolidated his rule.
Sakumo Hatake, twenty-six, was full of vigor and now had a son of his own.
Minato Namikaze, twelve, was growing stronger by the day.
The bad news: the war nearing its end was only the Second Great Ninja War.
Compared to the First, the Second was marked by the massive deaths of genin and chunin alike, showing that the intensity of battle had risen to another level.
And in truth, this Second War was nothing but a prelude to the next great conflict. Throughout it, Kumogakure and Kirigakure had remained mostly quiet, while Ame, Suna, Iwa, and Konoha fought in bloody chaos.
Seven years later, the Third Great Ninja War would erupt—far more brutal, and that was the real stage.
"Keheheheheh… sixteen years old, and I've managed to live through yet another day. What a great accomplishment. Praise every last Otsutsuki for this gift."
On the edge of the village, among the run-down houses, a thin, skeletal figure stepped out of the shadows, chuckling darkly.
This was Kaede Tsukasa—and he loved sunlight.
When he first arrived in this world, he lived only with the thought of surviving one more day, until eventually he couldn't hold on anymore and simply died. Not because he didn't try, but because sometimes, trying wasn't even possible.
The reason was simple: his was not a transmigration of the soul, but a transmigration of the body.
In his former world, he had been on the brink of death when, as an ordinary Earth human, he was thrust into the world of Naruto. During the crossing, his body reverted to that of a child. The shock nearly broke his mind.
A normal Earth human has about forty trillion cells. But the average person in the Naruto world? They had one hundred and thirty trillion.
This wasn't a mere threefold difference in physical ability—it was as if they were a completely different species.
That meant nearly every bacteria or virus Tsukasa carried over from Earth was harmless to the natives here—like a gentle breeze that would at worst cause a sneeze or a few hours of the sniffles.
But any common microbe in the Naruto world—harmless to its people—was, for Tsukasa in his frail Earth-born body, a life-or-death battle against the Reaper.
From the very first day he arrived, Tsukasa had been fighting a relentless war against disease. At times he believed it would never end—that he would forever live in sickness until, at best, his organs burned themselves out from endless strain.
As for why he didn't simply extract chakra—this almighty power that allowed matter and energy to be transformed—to suppress his illnesses…
Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Shinobi extracted chakra by combining the physical energy produced by their one hundred and thirty trillion cells with their own spiritual energy.
Tsukasa, with his meager forty trillion cells, trying to mold chakra? Impossible.
How could he possibly refine chakra with only forty trillion cells, while also fending off countless incomprehensible pathogens?
Refining too little chakra meant the limited amount couldn't even cover his body, let alone be precisely controlled to kill off the microbes inside him. And fine chakra control required massive amounts of chakra to practice—assuming he even had someone to teach him!
If he tried to refine just a little more chakra, or attempted it a little too often… Tsukasa Kaede would have simply dropped dead on the spot.
Now, at sixteen, his body was severely depleted. The fats, sugars, and proteins that could be used as fuel had been burned away in this endless tug of war. His body was nothing but skin and bones, and that was the only way he'd managed to achieve the "great accomplishment" of still being alive.
At this point, he could finally say he had temporarily adapted to this world's environment, that he now had the qualifications for "living normally."
But even if he never contracted another illness again, his current state meant his life span had already been drastically reduced.
Still, he no longer obsessed over his longevity. In some ways, he hadn't spent these years lying down waiting to die—he had been searching for a way out. And he had found one.
"All these years… refining that pitifully small amount of chakra bit by bit, experimenting again and again to find a path suited to me… I've finally achieved something."
Looking at himself in the mirror, Tsukasa looked like a gaunt version of Nagato. He lowered his gaze to his own hands and slowly clenched them. The power he had gained—in local terms—could only be described as…
Zombie release.
Tsukasa could manipulate a zombie-like virus, using it to "revive" the dead.
But until now, he had never revealed this ability to anyone. The reason was simple: to expose such a technique without sufficient strength to back it up would mean certain disaster.
No matter how one looked at it, tampering with corpses was inherently tied to forbidden jutsu—the most dangerous kind, the kind that should be sealed away forever. Anyone who learned of it would immediately suspect him of secretly seeking out corpses—or even capturing the living—to conduct grotesque experiments in the development of forbidden techniques.
After all, how else could such a power, one that made corpses move again, come into existence?
And at this time between the Second and Third Great Ninja Wars, such a method that defied life and death was far too outrageous.
"The Second Hokage's Impure World Reincarnation… Orochimaru shouldn't have learned it yet."
Tsukasa raised his hand, shielding his eyes from the blazing sun, inhaling deeply. For once, he didn't hear his lungs rasp like broken bellows, and he actually felt moved.
The most agonizing days had passed, for now. But he still had so much to do.
At the very least, he needed to escape this frail, battered Earth-born body. He had no energy to waste on sentimentality—survival had to come first.
"The gap between forty trillion and one hundred thirty trillion is too big. And with my current condition, my actual cell count is far below forty trillion. If I keep trying to refine chakra with this body, even working all my life, I'd never rise above genin."
Tsukasa narrowed his eyes. Orochimaru, at this point, should only just be starting his research into Living Corpse Reincarnation. That path wasn't an option for him. But it didn't matter—he would find his own way to his goal.
He would seize every opportunity, even if it meant working like a beast of burden for Konoha.
Even beasts of burden had their use, and the village was adept at using every resource to its fullest. Just then, someone came calling for him.
"Ryoma has issued an order: a medical-nin squad is to be assembled and sent to the northern border." A figure hurried up, worry plain on his face.
"Looks like more enemies have slipped in. The war may be over, but the tensions between nations haven't disappeared. These small infiltration squads are endless… to the point where even someone like me, with no talent at all, has to take the field under the guise of a medic. Still, to serve the village is my honor," Tsukasa said to the medical-nin before him.
This man was named Kazamatsuri Takuno. During the war, he had belonged to a medical squad under Jiraiya's command. If things had gone normally, he would have died on the Amegakure frontlines, poisoned while treating the wounded.
But thanks to Tsukasa lending him a hand at just the right moment, he had managed to escape that fate.