Chapter 1 Bamboo Cutter? Hyuga?
Tired!
So...so tired!
Her body felt as heavy as a stone, her eyelids felt as if they had been sewn shut, and the girl, covered in blood, lay on the ground struggling to open her eyes, her small chest heaving with heavy breathing.
Under the night sky, the dim, yellow crescent moon was lackluster, radiating a sense of powerless despondency.
The pervasive mist seemed to solidify, and with just a normal breath, the thick, metallic smell mixed with the mist filled her lungs, bringing a terrifying feeling of drowning.
Where was she?
The unfamiliar scene quickly brought the girl's mind back to normal.
She looked down.
As far as the eye could see, everything was black and red.
Blood.
So much blood.
On the land that had been plowed by a giant beast, red blood and black mud mingled together.
Countless mangled corpses lay scattered on the ground. Congealed black blood mixed with the scattered corpses, forming a heap, with limbs and fragments indistinguishable from one another. The shattered skull, white as night , and the entrails, red and green, lay in a pool of blood like peeled and chopped fruit flesh in jelly. The girl, gradually regaining consciousness, felt a chill run down her spine; this scene, resembling a human slaughterhouse, was truly terrifying.
She had worked overtime until 5 a.m. last night, returning to her cramped rented room, collapsing onto the bed, delirious.
When she awoke, this was the scene before her.
"Am I dead?! Is this… hell?"
Ugh… my head… my head hurts so much!" A sudden, burning pain shot through her brain.
Clutching her head, Hui Li rolled around in the pile of corpses. Her skull felt like it had been drilled through, her brain churning, fragments of memory appearing and disappearing in her mind.
Until she opened her eyes again.
Tiny gray light shone in her milky white pupils . After a long while, the excruciating pain subsided, and Hui Li finally sorted through the memories in her mind, discovering an absurd reality.
She had transmigrated, or rather, been reincarnated.
This body's name was Taketori Hui Li.
Female, age 6.
The shared bloodline of the Kaguya clan of Kirigakure in the Land of Water and the Hyuga clan of Konoha in the Land of Fire.
Her mother was a member of the Hyuga main clan, captured by the Kirigakure ninja Ao during the Third Shinobi World War, resulting in the loss of her Byakugan bloodline limit. She was later rescued by Kaguya's father, and the two fell in love and had a daughter. Because she inherited her mother's Byakugan, but with a faint gray tinge in the center of her pupil, she was named Kaguya.
Hyuga? Kaguya? ...Is this the Hokage? Then the current timeline is...the massacre of the Kaguya clan?
Looking at her small, blood-stained hands, Kaguya couldn't believe her speculation.
How absurd.
The memories in her mind made Kaguya feel that her worldview from the past thirty years had completely collapsed. Her arms trembled as she supported herself, her muscles aching and tearing, as if she had spent a year in the gym.
She stood up unsteadily, the scattered headless corpses and the overwhelming blood around her making Kaguya feel dizzy yet familiar.
The once-blurred image from her childhood reappeared as if time had reversed.
Suppressing the churning in her stomach, she reached inside the blood-stained clothes of the corpse and quickly pulled a small white medicine bottle from the inner pocket.
The bottle was cold to the touch.
A red circle was imprinted on its surface, with two red dots on either side of the circle's central axis, roughly coinciding with the circumference. In Hui Li's memory, this was the unique symbol of the Bamboo Clan; the two dots on either side of the circle symbolized authority and balance.
She skillfully pried open the bottle, and a thumb-sized brown pill rolled into her palm. *Gulp!*
Without the energy to count, she poured them all into her mouth. The pills were dry and hard, and her mouth struggled to produce saliva to help her swallow. Even after half the bottle of pills was gone, she couldn't taste anything.
Her stomach and intestines churned, grinding the pills, and soon the power returned to her body, warming her somewhat stiff and cold form.
Soldier's rations.
The compressed biscuits in the Naruto world are rich in nutrients, replenishing chakra for ninjas. The clan's ration pills are limited in quantity, distributed to adult clan members to maximize their fighting power.
The existence of this bottle of pills further confirmed the reality of this world for Hui Li.
Stepping on the blood-stained ground, while waiting for the ration pills to digest, Hui Li silently sorted out her current situation.
According to her memories, last night, the Kaguya clan fought a fierce battle against the Hidden Mist Anbu surrounding their territory.
The original owner of this body, possessing the Byakugan bloodline limit, acted as an intelligence agent, breaking through the encirclement with the main force of her clan, only to encounter the Anbu captain known as 'Ferocious Fang' and his large ninja force.
The result, of course, is self-evident.
Her parents and entire clan were wiped out, and Hui Li was also killed instantly by an unknown Anbu member who pierced her chest with a single blow.
So…
how did I survive?
Touching her small but intact chest, the large bloodstains on her clothes and the gash from the blade filled Hui Li with doubt.
Never mind.
How she survived isn't important; the key is how she will live on.
The situation was already set in stone, and her first thought was how to escape her predicament and survive. She needed to find a way to escape Kirigakure first.
Boom!
A terrifying explosion, mixed with screams and towering flames, came from the east, quickly fading into silence.
Was the battle not over yet?
She was currently in the Kaguya clan's territory, east of Kirigakure, surrounded by Kirigakure's Anbu. Breaking through the encirclement would still leave her within Kirigakure's sphere of influence; to leave the village, she would have to break through another layer of ninja village defenses.
The enemy was Kirigakure, one of the five great nations of the ninja world, and what did she have?
Hui Li silently weighed her own resources.
In this life, she was considered a child prodigy in the Kaguya clan. She extracted chakra at three, and under her mother's tutelage, she successfully awakened her Byakugan at five.
Now, at six, her chakra reserves were comparable to a Chunin, she was proficient in basic Gentle Fist, and the rest were the E-rank Three Body Techniques that every ninja possessed, and… these corpses scattered everywhere.
She ranked her resources from largest to smallest.
The soldier's ration pills in his stomach completely dissolved and digested, and a large amount of physical energy gathered from his limbs and bones to his dantian, bursting forth along his meridians towards his heart. Invisible spiritual energy gathered in his brow and descended. Nothingness and existence, the two gathered and transformed at the 'chakra seed' in his heart, and the pale blue chakra rose within him like the morning sun illuminating the world.
His heart and the 'chakra seed' pumped together.
Power flowed through his body along with his blood.
The weakness subsided, and Hui Li did not rush to escape.
Without breaking through the encirclement of the Hidden Mist Anbu, any escape would be futile. And if he wanted to break through the blockade, battle would likely be unavoidable. The most urgent task now was to enrich himself, so that he would have more room to maneuver in the future.
He turned over the corpses on the ground one by one.
One by one, familiar figures were covered in blood, their lifeless eyes mechanically gazing at the sky. Among these people were Hui Li's relatives, neighbors, and companions who had grown up with him, as well as Hidden Mist Anbu members wearing masks and ninja vests.
Soldier pills, shuriken, explosive tags…
Gray Glass dissected the corpses without discrimination, carefully collecting the precious resources she scavenged—essential assets for her future survival. Lying on the ground, tidying up the scattered bodies on the battlefield, the pungent smell of blood filled her nostrils. She felt like a hyena scavenging on the African savanna.
But hyenas mostly travel in packs; she, a lone wolf, was more like a stray dog on the roadside.
Ha!
As if amused by her own lame joke, Gray Glass chuckled and carefully folded the few explosive tags she had, stuffing them into her pocket. After a major battle, these resources were either completely depleted or soaked in water and blood; very few were usable. After organizing her supplies, she looked up again.
Ahead lay another corpse of an Anbu, its legs twisted, wearing a mask with a raindrop-shaped mark from the Misty Hidden Leaf Village on its forehead. Gray Glass walked over excitedly, her small hand eagerly reaching into the ninja tool pouch at the back of the corpse.
Based on her experience looting the corpses, these Anbu members would likely have slightly better equipment than the Kaguya clan members.
A small hand reached into the backpack.
It was warm to the touch, but empty.
Wait…
How could a corpse that had been dead for so long be warm?
The thought flashed through her mind, and Hui Li's body suddenly stiffened, because she felt a… large, warm hand in her ninja tool pouch.
Suddenly.
The large hand gripped Hui Li's wrist tightly, dragging her towards it.
Hui Li's deathly gray pupils contracted to pinpoints with tension. She instinctively shook her hand and struggled desperately, but the enemy's large hand was like a steel clamp, clamping down on her wrist, making it impossible to break free.
Whoosh!
The ANBU corpse, which had been thought to be dead, suddenly opened its eyes. Its left hand gripped Hui Li's wrist, and its right hand grabbed a kunai it had somehow found, aiming for Hui Li's slender throat.
The world seemed to slow down.
The enemy's mask had comically long, narrow eyes that were crooked and bloodshot, filled with chilling killing intent. Hui Li jerked her head back to dodge the fatal throat-slashing blow. The sharp kunai flashed with a dazzling light, slicing through her blood-scabbed hair. She could even see the gaping wounds that had appeared on the edge of the kunai after countless battles.
The man was startled to see Hui Li nimbly evade this premeditated, deadly attack. His left hand continued to grip Hui Li's wrist, while his right hand, gripping the kunai, drew a semi-circle in the air before thrusting it towards her brow.
The movements were fluid and swift.
The attacks were exceptionally vicious and ruthless, each strike aimed at Hui Li's vital points. With no way to dodge, Hui Li had no time to think.
A flash of madness crossed her pale gray pupils. From her ninja tool pouch, her right hand gripped the enemy's wrist, while her left hand also grabbed a kunai and thrust it towards the opponent's head and face.
Beneath the blood mist, on the battlefield strewn with corpses, two lucky survivors, struggling to their feet amidst the bodies of their comrades, held hands, wielding kunai in a desperate exchange of blows.
*Swoosh! *
The sharp tip of the kunai pierced between his brows, crimson blood streaming down his face like a red paintbrush splitting his features in two.
Hui Li's eyes widened, his arm straining forward, but the kunai tip weakly tugged at his clothes, unable to go any further…
(End of Chapter)