Uzumaki Mito paused for a moment, as if recalling the past.
Back when Ryo first enrolled, because of his striking red hair, the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, had personally visited her.
At first, the Hokage thought an ancestor of the Uzumaki clan had appeared in Konoha. After all, the Uzumaki clan had carried red hair for generations and were renowned as ideal vessels for sealing Tailed Beasts.
But after careful investigation, it was discovered that Ryo was simply a civilian descendant of the Senju scattered throughout Konoha. His parents had died young, and he had grown up in hardship.
Considering the frequent intermarriages between the Senju and the Uzumaki, with their bloodlines often intertwined, it was possible for ancestral Uzumaki traits to surface in Senju descendants.
Children with such red hair naturally had strong physiques, abundant life force, and vast chakra reserves, making them prime candidates for becoming Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails.
Most importantly, Ryo was a Konoha native with a clean civilian background.
He belonged naturally to the Hokage's faction. He was one of their own.
The Third Hokage even considered grooming him to replace the aging Uzumaki Mito as the next Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.
So he asked Mito to personally confirm whether Ryo had awakened the Uzumaki bloodline and to evaluate his potential.
Mito remembered that scene clearly.
She had carefully "looked" at the six-year-old boy with red hair. Silent, stubborn, wearing old clothes, but standing with a straight back.
The result, however, was disappointing.
Mito sensed that the chakra within Ryo's body was pitifully weak, even thinner than that of the most ordinary academy student.
It did not resemble an awakened Uzumaki bloodline at all.
'Perhaps it's just a special hair color, without inheriting the chakra talent of the Uzumaki,' Mito concluded, and she reported this to the Third Hokage.
Ryo was excluded from the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki candidates, left as nothing more than a poor, unnoticed Senju orphan.
It was precisely because of this that, after the fall of the Uzumaki, the Hokage urgently dispatched the Anbu to bring back Kushina, whose bloodline was purer and stronger, to Konoha for training.
Mito's judgment had not been wrong.
At that time, the original Kamiyama Ryo was indeed nothing more than an ordinary child with mediocre talent and meager chakra, destined to remain unknown in the ninja world or even to die as cannon fodder.
His chakra reserves were so pitiful that he could barely perform even a simple E-rank ninjutsu.
But what neither Mito nor the Third Hokage could have imagined was that the Ryo who had transmigrated was no longer the same mediocre child.
Soon after enrolling at the age of six, a cheat system quietly bound itself to him."
Perhaps because of his red hair, similar to the Uzumaki, the first inheritance the system granted him was from a peak figure of another world—the One Piece world's "Red-Haired" Shanks, one of the Four Emperors, master of the strongest Conqueror's Haki.
The system's power completely and fundamentally transformed Ryo's body.
He was granted a terrifying physique on par with Shanks in his youth: dense muscles, tough bones, monstrous strength and stamina, fast recovery, and terrifying growth potential.
Within him lay the potential for Conqueror's Haki, and he unlocked about 30% of Shanks' combat skills and fighting experience.
This transformation even unintentionally fused with the tiny trace of life energy within his Senju bloodline.
The result was today's Ryo, a small Tyrannosaurus in the skin of an eight-year-old child. His health bar was ridiculously thick, his recovery astonishingly fast, and he carried the instincts of a top-tier fighter, albeit in a younger form.
And his so-called thin chakra?
That was just an illusion.
As everyone knows, chakra is the fusion of spiritual and physical energy.
With his terrifying physique nourished by Shanks' legacy, his dormant Conqueror's Haki, and his powerful spiritual energy as a transmigrator, Ryo was destined to become a sea of chakra in the future.
Mito had only given him a brief glance, failing to see the deeper layers. That was why she had concluded his chakra was thin and without Uzumaki talent.
Listening to Nawaki's description of Ryo like he was some terrifying monster, seeing Mito's thoughtful look, and remembering Ryo's roar in class that silenced everyone even while half-asleep, Kushina couldn't help but feel dazed.
This deskmate of hers… did seem… really strong?
But when school ended earlier, he hadn't seemed scary at all.
Most of her indignation had faded, replaced by a strange mix of curiosity and lingering resentment from Ryo brushing her off earlier.
Mito's soft, soothing voice pulled her back from her thoughts. "So, Kushina and Ryo are in the same class, and even deskmates?"
She looked down at Kushina with a gentle smile. "That is fate. Since you are deskmates, Kushina, get along well with him. Both of you are very special children."
"Get along with him…" Kushina repeated, pouting again. "But all he does is sleep! He barely listens when I talk to him! This afternoon, when I tried to be friends with him, he just said, 'If there's nothing, I'm going home!'" She mimicked Ryo's stiff tone, which drew laughter from Tsunade and Nawaki.
"Haha, such personality?" Tsunade chuckled. "Interesting! Kushina, looks like your path to making friends won't be smooth."
Nawaki couldn't help but laugh as well, though his laugh carried more relief. Better Kushina than him dealing with that walking disaster.
"Hmph! I'm not talking to you guys!" Kushina's cheeks turned bright red as she buried herself in Mito's arms again.
The fading glow of the sunset filtered through the paper doors, bathing the room in a warm orange light.
(To be continued.)
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