'My name is ꃔ꒐ꏳꊿ꒒ꁲꈜ.'
'I-'
'What?'
'No. My name is ክጎርዐረልነ.'
'…Fuck.'
'My name is-!'
-~=~-
"-hei. Yohei? Yohei!"
The shout snaps the boy back into himself like a rubber band.
'Where am I?'
Two men sit behind a wooden desk. The one who barked at him has tanned skin and brown hair, a jagged scar slashing down across the bridge of his nose. His face is twisted into an almost theatrical anger.
Beside him sits a man with pale skin and a serene smile, his hair a spill of pure white that frames his face in gentle waves.
"Come on, Iruka, you only graduate once," the pale man says, voice warm enough to melt candlewax. "He's just overwhelmed."
"I know that, Mizuki. But that's no reason to block the entire line - everyone else is waiting their turn."
Iruka - Iruka? - lets out a sigh, and when he looks back at Yohei, the sharpness drains from his eyes. What replaces it is something gentler: fond, tired, exasperated in that very teacherly way.
"Genin Yohei."
'That's… me, right?'
"Ah- yes?" The word falls out of him like a stone.
Iruka nods, more composed now. "Congratulations on your graduation. From today onward, you are a shinobi of Konoha, a bearer of the Will of Fire." He gestures to the table beside the desk, where dozens of forehead protectors lie in a tidy array. "You may take your hitai-ate."
With no better idea of what he's supposed to do, the boy reaches out - hesitantly - and takes the closest one. The moment it's in his hands, something catches in his chest.
The fabric is thick and soft beneath his fingers. The metal plate is cool, beautifully cold, grounding in a way he didn't know he needed. His thumb drifts over the engraved leaf symbol, and a shiver of nameless emotions ripple through him.
"Thank you," he breathes, though he isn't quite sure who he's thanking. Or why.
"It was all because of your hard work, Yohei-kun," Mizuki says softly. The smile he offers is gentle on the surface, but something about it scrapes wrong against Yohei's instincts.
"That's right," Iruka adds with an encouraging nod. "Go on now. Head back to your seat and send Kiba in next, alright?"
Right.
'Because I absolutely know where that is.'
He nods anyway, bowing slightly in reflex, and turns toward the exit. His steps feel borrowed, like he's wearing someone else's memories as shoes. He slips out of the exam room, opens the door to the one beside it, and steps through - hoping it's the correct one.
Inside, he's greeted by the sight of a wide classroom carved into steps - rows of wooden desks and benches built as single units, marching upward toward the back like ascetic soldiers. Everything is straight lines and flat planes, all practicality and little to no ornament. Even the floorboards, pale and lightly varnished, hum with a rustic simplicity.
The walls are painted in mild tones and bordered with neat wooden trim. To his right, tall rectangular windows dominate the entire side of the room, pouring sunlight across the seats. Through them, past the village rooftops, a titanic stone cliff rises - its surface carved into enormous, solemn faces.
For a moment, Yohei simply stares. It's the sort of sight one would only expect to find in an anime.
"Kiba's next," he announces, almost on autopilot.
A wild-looking boy with a feral grin snaps his head up at the call and practically springs from his seat, barreling out the door with an enthusiasm that leaves a small breeze in his wake.
'Anime… what even is that?' Yohei wonders as he starts down the staggered rows. 'And why does that girl have pink hair? Did she dye it? Wait- no. That's just… Sakura.'
Sakura doesn't notice his silent bewilderment; she's far too busy gazing down at her new forehead protector as though it's a sacred relic, occasionally sneaking quick, starstruck glances at the dark-haired boy sitting at the desk in front of her.
She isn't alone in that, either. Plenty of other girls are stealing looks at him - Uchiha Sasuke. That's his name. The certainty slips into Yohei's mind like it's always lived there.
But in general, the room is filled with students clutching their hitai-ate, turning them over reverently, or bouncing impatiently in their seats as they wait to receive their own.
And oddly, Yohei finds that he does know where his seat is.
'And my name,' he realizes as he walks. 'Kuroyama Yohei. Kuroyama - written with the Kanji for black and mountain. Yohei - written with the Kanji for sun and calm.'
Despite the fog swirling through the edges of his mind, a small smile tugs at him at the scrap of identity recovered. But it quickly folds into a thoughtful frown.
'Great. I know my name. But who am I? Who is Kuroyama Yohei?'
The answer sits in his palms.
He looks down at the forehead protector, the engraved leaf catching the daylight. The meaning lodges in him instantly, deeply, as if rooted in bone.
'Shinobi. I'm-'
A flicker of motion passes across the windows. Yohei's head snaps toward it just in time to see figures sprinting along red-tiled rooftops, leaping from building to building with supernatural ease.
'A ninja.'
-~=~-
It took him the better part of an hour to piece himself back together - an hour of digging through a mind that felt half-packed with someone else's luggage. And then most of the morning repeating the process again and again until everything stopped feeling like a scene in a movie and started settling into place as his memories.
He was Kuroyama Yohei. Twelve years old. Freshly graduated from the Ninja Academy of Konohagakure no Sato. A genin.
His father had been Kuroyama Tatsuo, a Special Jōnin. Had been - before the Kyuubi's attack left him saturated with chakra poisoning so deep it hollowed him out from the inside. A slow, cruel erosion. The same power that once strengthened him had ultimately killed him.
His mother was Kuroyama Nanami, a medic-nin. Not field-active anymore - she'd traded missions for steady shifts at the hospital years ago. Since Tatsuo's death last year, she'd been his only family, and scarcely a week had passed without her gently reminding him that he didn't need to be a shinobi. He could be a merchant, a doctor, anything he wanted. She'd meant it, too. Truly.
And yet… when she knelt in front of him and cupped his face in both hands, her blue eyes - so much like his - shimmering with pride and soft wonder as they drifted to the gleaming hitai-ate on his forehead, before finding his gaze again-
"Your father would be so proud of you."
The sight throbbed warmly in his chest. Past-Yohei had been completely justified in his choice.
Ignoring the other parents and students milling around, ignoring the teenage self-consciousness that prickled faintly at the back of his neck, he had stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. A tight, anchoring hug.
"I love you," he'd murmured into her blue hair.
"I love you too, my little shinobi," she'd whispered back, humor threading through her voice - right alongside a trembling sob - as her fingers slid gently through his own brown hair.
It took them both a few moments to compose themselves. Nanami rose from her crouch, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand, tiny sniffles escaping before she summoned a smile bright enough to chase shadows off rooftops.
"Now then-" she declared, clapping her hands, "I got us a reservation at that hot pot place you love. We're celebrating!"
"What if I hadn't passed?" he asked, voice warm with wry amusement.
"Then we'd be eating as consolation!" she fired back without hesitation, punching the air with such earnest enthusiasm that he couldn't help laughing as he fell into step behind her.
But the cheer faltered when something tugged at the corner of his awareness.
Off to the side, in the small park across from the Academy, a blond boy sat alone on a swing tucked into a shaded corner. His orange-and-blue jumpsuit made him unmissable, but his expression was small - crushed under the weight of everyone else's joy.
Uzumaki Naruto.
The Troublemaker.
The only one in their class who didn't graduate.
The Protagonist.
A vise tightened around Yohei's heart.
Nanami, noticing he'd stopped, followed his line of sight. Her reaction was instant, and very different: her mouth thinned, brows pulling together in a sharp, protective tension. She tried - poorly - to smooth her expression, but the anger beneath it crackled like static against her skin before she caught his hand and tugged him firmly away.
"Come on, Yohei-kun. We'll be late."
He let himself be guided, though the weight in his chest made the world feel heavier with each step. Naruto's blue eyes trailed after him, full of a lonely, aching longing, until the boy slipped out of sight.
-~=~-
Hours later - belly full of hot pot and wrapped in the soft heaviness that comes after a long day - Yohei finally let himself collapse onto his bed. Muscles loose, belly warm, mind exhausted. Only then did his thoughts unclench enough for him to stare at the wooden ceiling and face the last, most terrifying truth.
"I'm a character," he whispered into the stillness.
The words tasted like dust.
He shook his head, a bitter laugh slipping out despite the ache in his chest. "No. Worse. I'm not a protagonist, or a side character, or even a background regular. I'm less than an extra - just another face in a crowd shot."
He squeezed his fist tight and lifted it to knock against his forehead - only to thunk against metal instead of skin. The hitai-ate, cool and accusing, made the moment sting even more.
A shaky breath escaped him. He slapped a hand over his mouth to smother the sob building in his throat, curling inward as his body trembled with the kind of grief that has no audience.
After a moment, he pulled the forehead protector off and stared down at it, the symbol gleaming faintly in the dimming light.
"Is this a joke?" His voice cracked around the words. "Who would think up something this… cruel?"
Because he knew. He knew that of the more than twenty students who had graduated today - who smiled for their parents and clutched their new protectors with shining eyes - less than half would actually keep them.
"Two days."
Two days until the genin units were formed. Two days until they were assigned to a jōnin sensei - someone meant to train them, protect them, guide them into becoming the next generation of Konoha's pride.
…If they passed the test.
Which, Yohei knew, most of them wouldn't.
The Rookie Nine - as Kiba so triumphantly called them. Nine out of twenty-seven who would actually become shinobi rather than being quietly shunted back to the Academy. Nine prodigies, clan heirs, the future pillars of the village.
And the worst part?
"They don't even fucking matter, either," he muttered into the dim room.
Because when it came down to it, out of all those vaunted prodigies, only three of them could ever hope to stand as equals against the true titans of this world. In the face of its actual monsters, someone like Kiba wouldn't even have time to bark before he was mulch.
So what did that make him - someone even further down the ladder than Kiba?
A nobody.
A nobody who could barely call himself a shinobi.
A nobody who couldn't honor his father's sacrifice.
A nobody who would be powerless to protect his mother when a man-child with a god complex decided to vaporize the village - while some fucking gremlin on TikTok turned the footage of the massacre into a phonk edit.
The thought made his blood boil, his lungs tighten, his strangled laugh twist into something close to hysteria. He wanted to scream - wanted to tear the ceiling in half and demand an explanation from whatever cosmic idiot had thrown him into this nightmare. But he bit it down, swallowing the scream like broken glass. If his mother came in and found him mid-breakdown, he'd have no way to explain any of it.
So instead he cried into his pillow.
And he raged silently.
And he stared blankly out the window as shadowy figures darted across rooftops, the village's night watch in a frantic search for a certain blond boy and the forbidden scroll he'd stolen.
Naruto was out there right now - probably reading from the Scroll of Seals this very moment, learning the technique that would start him on the path toward becoming the future God of Shinobi. Maybe he'd already mastered it. Maybe he was moments away from discovering the truth curled inside his own belly: that he carried the same creature that had massacred Yohei's extended family and poisoned his father into an early grave.
A creature Yohei couldn't even bring himself to hate - not fully. Not when he imagined what it meant to be imprisoned for decades in a void, pinned in place by stakes driven through your limbs, shackled by chains that could never break.
Eventually, the commotion outside faded. The moon climbed high. His fury burned itself out, leaving behind a hollow, trembling quiet. Yohei lay there, sweat cooling on his skin, chest aching, mind finally - finally - settling into a single, sharp conclusion.
"I need power."
The words left him with the weight of a vow.
A sharp ping chimed through the air.
[CONGRATULATIONS!]
"What-"
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE C̘̣͎̅ͤ̀̑̇h̸̵̨̨̛̗̞̼͍̯͖̺̱̣͖̳͔̠̻̲͔̲̻̔ͥͣ̍́́ͮ̃ͨ̋ͪ͘͜͜͝͡͞ǡ̡̧̧̧̨̝̪̝͚͙̣̹̺̣̫̜̲̤ͦ̆͋͊̽̑̾̔̉̀͗̔̊̍̈́ͫ͋͋ͤ̅ͮ̕̕ö̙͎́ͦs̶̟̘̆͑̐͒ͤ̾͢͞_͕̍ G̬̟̙̬͕̖̲̉ͥͪ͒̌̾̃̐͂̊̓̎͗ͫ͠a̙̱̿͋̃_͘ć̴̨̡̲̝͔͈͍͇͔͚͙̤̫͚͆̎̏ͮ͌ͯ̀ͯ̂ͬ̍̾̓̈́͌̓͋͛̿͛ͩ̿̒̚̕͜͜͡͝_h͇͍̗̖̗̳͕͌̎̂̄̓]
"-the fuck."
An unnervingly blye glowing box hovered in front of him. Like a video game menu torn out of a screen and nailed into the air. His face scrunched through confusion… gleeful dawning recognition… and then sinking, horrified dismay as the blue bled into a furious, arterial red.
[ERROR]
"No. No, no, no, don't- don't do this, please don't-"
[REBOOTING]
He expelled a huge, shaking breath as the red blanched into white, pulsing softly… thump… thump… like a failling heartbeat. Then it cooled back to basic blue.
[CONGRATULATIONS!]
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE Č̷̞̯̣͉̪̲̺͝h̴̡̨̛̖͍͍̤̊̎͗a̸͎̓̀̄͝ō̷̝̰̫̤̗̫̓̈́̎̆̏̆͂̈̚͠ş̷̳̩̤̹̓͂̂͋̊̋̎̈́̆̂̏ ̷̣̱̜̠̥͐̐̀̒̄̕G̵͙͚̞͇̮͈̱͚̜̬̭̋̓̔͒̏̏̂̆̍̐̚a̷̫̖͆̋̓̈́́͆͑̄͝c̶̥̼͉̘̻̗̥͍͙̅̃́̈́̔̄͠h̸̢̡̧̤̿͊͆̊̀̀́͑̌͘ͅͅa̸̠̰̐̔̏̈͑̍͗̄̾͠]
And then-
[ERROR]
This time the flip back to white took even less time, like the system itself was getting annoyed.
[REBOOTING]
…
[REBOOTING]
…
Again.
[CONGRATULATIONS!]
Again.
Again.
And again.
The name garbled each time - corrupted fonts, missing pieces, strokes twitching like broken centipedes. A kaleidoscope of glitch-languages. Some messages collapsing mid-syllable. Others stretching for too long, past his sight and perception.
Yohei's dread curdled.
What if this thing - this "golden finger," his otherworldly cheat - was permanently broken?
What if he'd gotten the bootleg version?
The cosmic knockoff?
A cursed gacha banner that would never load, trapping his vision in this loop forever?
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE 混沌の巻物]
His breath caught.
That one looked… readable.
And almost promising.
Then:
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE C̢͔͑H̴̨̢̤̒̍̾́ͣ̑̑̀͟͠A̡̗̺̗̾ͬ̋̈́Ơ̴̢̧̝̪̖̟̆̏͊ͯ͠ͅS̶̨̭̰̙̻̎̐́͆͡_̶̸̨̛̯͕̫̤͎̙͔̣͉͈̪̝̐̓͐̉̂͐̏̽̓̆̓̉ S̸͔͖͎͓͕͆ͧ̒̓̒ͣ̉͊̒͛͘̕͠_̘̜̈̎͟Çͯ̇R͍̯̠̹̳̯̈́ͨ̋̀̚͝ͅƠ̶̵̩̳̩̩̪̫͙̞͖͉͖̘͌ͩ̒̏̍͐̈͐͐ͦ̂̿̓Ļ̺̠͈̥̱͚̜̺̐͂̓̓́̃̓ͪͭ͋͜͡͞͠ͅL̴̟̟̘̻͕̠̣̻̥̜̦ͯ̒ͭ̅͊̐͗́ͨ̕͟͟ͅ]
Then finally - mercifully -
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE CHAOS SCROLL]
The blue screen burst like a soap bubble snapping, leaving behind a puff of soft white smoke. When it cleared, something heavy landed in Yohei's lap with a muted thunk.
A scroll.
Thicker than his tight, all matte black and edged with gold
His heartbeat pounded like war drums behind his ribs as he lifted it with trembling fingers. The scroll unrolled only a short distance before stopping, the dark paper swallowing light and giving nothing back. No writing. No hint. Just emptiness.
His chest tightened.
Broken? Again?
A spark of intuition crackled through him.
He raised his thumb up to his teeth and bit down hard as he could.
The sting of the pierced flesh barely registered as blood started seeping form the wound.
He pressed it to the scroll and wrote, slowly, deliberately:
黒
山
陽
平
The blood shimmered like a crimson ember against the scroll's black surface before sinking in, and the interior of the parchment blanched to stark white. Only then did the stubborn thing finally unspool - just a little more - revealing three concentric circles packed tight with symbols and letters. Some he almost recognized from class, but they twisted away from comprehension like coy little serpents.
Fūinjutsu seals.
Real ones. Not the kiddie diagrams they practiced at the Academy.
Trying to remember Iruka-sensei's crisp, patient instructions, Yohei pressed his palm against the first circle and readied himself to push a trickle of chakra in-
It fired off before he could even blink.
Another puff. Another cloud of smoke. And suddenly a small brown scroll was sitting in his hand. The corresponding seal on the Chaos Scroll simply vanished. He tried the second, then the third - both of them colored silver - and soon three little scrolls sat on his bed like smug hens, while the Chaos Scroll gave one last puff and winked out of existence entirely.
Yohei swallowed, throat dry as gravel, and reached for the first scroll.
[不滅の牙 — Fumetsu no Kiba — Forever Fangs]
|E-Rank Bloodline|
Your teeth are spectacularly durable and strong. You can bite into stone and chew it without damage. You will never suffer dental issues. Should your teeth break, they will regrow like fingernails.
"…That is not what I was expecting," Yohei whispered.
Beneath the words was another fuinjutsu seal, which he pressed his hand into. The scroll immediately dissolved into smoke, leaving behind-
"A tooth? Seriously?"
It sat in his palm like a tiny ivory charm. But the longer he rolled it between his fingers, the more wrong it felt. Too smooth. Too glossy. Too… fragrant?
He lifted it to his nose.
A soft, sweet scent drifted out - fresh cream and sugar.
"…Candy?"
He stared at it for three whole seconds, then squared his shoulders with the weary resolve of someone who had already resigned himself to cosmic nonsense.
"Fine."
He popped it into his mouth and bit down. The shell cracked like delicate icing, and a flood of velvety milk-sweet cream coated his tongue.
"Huh," he muttered around the taste. "It's not actually that- Ugh!"
His whole body spasmed. Something splintered behind his face, sharp as lightning. A pressure built in his jaw - measured at first, then growing, blooming, pushing-
His teeth burst free from his gums in a horrifying series of soft pops.
New teeth pushed up instantly to replace them.
Yohei choked, gagged, and spat a mouthful of discarded teeth into his hand. Warm and slick with spit and blood.
He stared at the mess and felt a fresh wave of disbelieving disgust rise through him.
"…What the hell am I supposed to do with these, now?"
A few minutes later, one hastily cobbled-together sealing scroll tucked in a place he prayed no one would ever discover, ans hands scrubbed like he'd committed a crime - Yohei sat back on his bed. The remaining silver scrolls waited for him like coiled snakes. He eyed them suspiciously and let out an aggrieved huff.
He unrolled the first one.
[心相眼 – Shinsōgan – Heart-Phase Eye]
|C-Rank Bloodline|
This Bloodline Limit allows you to perceive your current relationship with people you are interested in and what they think of you; it also reveals their interests, likes, and dislikes.
A "bloodline" again.
Fucking fantastic.
His stomach staged a small rebellion as he prepared for whatever horror awaited in the accompanying seal.
Poof.
He was not prepared.
An eyeball-shaped candy - disturbingly chewy-looking - sat where the smoke cleared. A bubblegum-pink heart pulsed faintly where the iris should be, and a delicate red string dangled from the back like some deranged decorative tassel.
Yohei clamped his eyes shut, scrunched his entire face into a grimace, tilted his head back, and tossed the thing into his mouth before his brain could register the texture. He swallowed fast, then jammed a pillow between his teeth, bracing for what he expected was to come.
It didn't hurt.
Pain would've been preferable.
Instead, he felt his vision dissolve into darkness - eyes turning to static - and then a pressure, a shift, an impossible slip as his eyes abandoned their sockets and new ones settled in behind them with a soft finality that made the skin along his spine ripple.
It was… an exotic form of dread.
"I should've picked another storage seal," Yohei muttered, wincing as he gingerly pinched the expelled globes between two fingers and stepped away from the bed, holding them like rotten grapes.
-~=~-
Yohei stood before the small mirror hanging crookedly on his wall, the room still kept in darkness so his mother wouldn't wake. His reflection stared back at him: tanned skin, bright blue eyes inherited straight from Nanami, a mane of dark, curly hair falling in soft, unruly arcs around his face.
Except… the eyes weren't quite his.
In the center of each iris, where a calm black pupil should sit, pulsed a tiny heart - pink and luminous but strangely contained, shining without shedding a single drop of light into the room.
He leaned in. Blinked. Squinted.
All it did was-
"A whole bunch of nothing."
Maybe the Shinsōgan simply refused to work on its owner.
His first instinct had been panic: Was this permanent?
Would he have to start wearing masks like a budget ANBU reject? Or one of those ridiculous forehead protectors with extensions he'd seen some chunin sport?
But no - one focused breath and a subtle pinch of will, and the minuscule chakra stream feeding his eyes tapered off. The hearts vanished. His reflection snapped back to normal, blue and harmless.
He exhaled, a quiet, shaky little gust, and stepped away from the mirror.
This time, when he returned to his bed, he came armed: a fresh storage scroll laid open beside him in case yet another organ decided to abandon ship.
He picked up the final silver scroll. Whispered a prayer to every benevolent force in the universe. He needed something useful, something that might help him survive the disaster looming over him soon: his jōnin-sensei's test.
He cracked the seal.
[極筋強襲 – Gokukin Kyōshū – Extreme Muscle Assault]
|C-Rank Taijutsu|
This technique allows you to bulk up, reinforcing and strengthening all of your muscles to superhuman levels. Even as a base human, you can tear apart steel and throw objects weighing a ton. Overuse may result in severe soreness and muscle tears.
"Yes," he hissed, victorious but quiet.
This scroll was different. No odd little gift tucked in the fuinjutsu. No organ-shaped treat waiting to ruin his night. Instead, it unfolded further, pages blooming outward to reveal intricate anatomical diagrams - muscles sketched in layers, notes crammed in the margins, step-by-step instructions on how to activate the technique through breath, tension, and chakra control.
"There are at least two types of reward, then," Yohei murmured. "One that rewrites me instantly… and one I actually have to work for."
His gaze drifted across the final illustration: a figure so over-built it bordered on comic - an avalanche of muscle sculpted into human shape. The sort of physique that would make even Ronnie Coleman at his peak kneel and cry.
A grin tugged at Yohei's lips.
"I think I prefer this one."