The academy was a game of scores and pride—until the real world reminded Adrian what shinobi were made for.
After school, Adrian left behind a flower clone to walk Shizune home—one that stayed linked to his senses—and headed alone toward Konoha's back mountain to train.
At the academy, he wore a relaxed smile. He had time to eat lunch under the trees, banter with classmates, and endure the strange "attention" he kept attracting.
But Adrian had never forgotten what this world truly was.
He hadn't come to the shinobi world by choice.
Before Tsunade ever found him, he had already seen death.
Not just seen it—caused it.
Back when he'd first awakened in this world, he'd been alone in the wilderness with almost no survival experience. After struggling to hunt down a single wild mountain chicken using his strange new ability, someone appeared.
An Iwagakure chūnin.
The man stole Adrian's food and, to avoid exposing his own tracks, tried to kill Adrian afterward to silence him.
So Adrian killed him instead.
With joint locks and brute force, he snapped the man's limbs—then his spine—ending him in unbearable agony.
Adrian had never regretted it.
Because in this world, hesitation was a death sentence.
Konoha's back mountain was quiet—an empty valley littered with massive boulders.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Most students trained by striking wooden posts, their knuckles wrapped in protective bandages.
Adrian didn't.
Bare-handed, he slammed his fists into stone as if pain didn't exist.
Each impact shook a boulder that weighed several tons. If someone's eyesight was sharp enough, they would have noticed the rock trembling—fine cracks spreading across its surface like veins.
The section Adrian struck had already caved inward.
Before long, it would join the others.
Around him lay the shattered remains of more than a dozen boulders—proof of three years of relentless training.
If the stones could speak, they would've cried injustice.
When Adrian first woke up in this world, he hadn't just found the Flower-Flower Fruit nearby—his body itself was different. Tougher. Stronger. More resilient than a normal child's.
He didn't know whether it was the fruit or something else, but his physique carried a durability that felt… wrong for this world.
He wasn't some indestructible monster like the legendary figures of other worlds, and he didn't have a miraculous healing factor.
But Adrian was confident of one thing:
A stray kunai to the back wasn't going to kill him.
That durability—combined with sheer strength—was the reason he had survived long enough to counterkill a chūnin when he didn't even understand the shinobi world yet.
His main body focused on taijutsu and conditioning. In the end, ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu all demanded a strong body to support them. Without it, even a genius could burn out early.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen flower clones trained around him—some drilling kenjutsu, others refining chakra control, practicing hand seals, or studying techniques.
Flower clones weren't like Shadow Clones.
They weren't temporary constructs that vanished and dumped memories afterward.
Their senses remained linked to Adrian the entire time.
What Adrian was doing now was essentially the same as one person performing a dozen tasks simultaneously—without needing focus tricks or split attention exercises.
If he ever developed a second personality at this rate, it wouldn't even be surprising.
But then again… if the woman who originally wielded this power could manipulate thousands of arms at once with perfect precision, Adrian figured his mind would hold.
After Tsunade brought him back to Konoha, his days weren't exactly easy.
He cooked, cleaned, handled chores, and practically kept the household running—because Tsunade, aside from gambling, wasn't exactly domestic.
Still, she had allowed him access to her private collection.
As the Senju clan's princess, Tsunade possessed countless inherited records—medical ninjutsu, elemental techniques, genjutsu notes, even swordsmanship insights passed down from the Second Hokage.
Not forbidden techniques like Flying Thunder God or Edo Tensei, of course… but what remained was more than enough to build a foundation most shinobi could only dream of.
One of Adrian's flower clones swung a chakra-infused blade nearby, its movements sharp and disciplined.
Adrian didn't particularly like the Second Hokage as a person—
—but his swordsmanship notes were undeniably valuable.
Beside that clone, another held a tightly condensed sphere of swirling chakra.
A Rasengan.
The Rasengan was pure chakra shape transformation pushed to the limit, and Adrian already knew its principles from another life. In the original world, Naruto's explanation to Konohamaru had been clumsy at best—yet Konohamaru still learned it in a matter of days.
Adrian wasn't a genius… but with three years of steady practice, he had mastered it.
Not only could he form a Rasengan—
He could form an oversized one as well.
If you came to the Naruto world and couldn't make a Rasengan, what was the point?
After a long stretch of training, several flower clones dissolved into drifting petals. The power cost was low, but maintaining so many bodies for too long still strained his mind.
Adrian exhaled slowly, letting his shoulders loosen.
There was no sudden "memory feedback" like Shadow Clones—because his clones had been sharing everything with him the whole time. It was less like disposable copies and more like a network of linked bodies—almost like the Six Paths of Pain in concept.
A breeze carried petals through the air.
With a quiet pulse of chakra, those petals gathered again—forming fresh clones.
They resumed their drills without pause.
"Not much physical fatigue," Adrian muttered. "But it really burns through mental focus."
Even so, he went back to punching stone.
Elsewhere, the flower clone walking Shizune home was already preparing dinner. Adrian truly had the fate of a laborer—training his body while his clones trained his skills… and still needing to cook.
A new boulder was hoisted onto his back with clone assistance.
He began doing push-ups beneath the weight.
"One… thousand… two hundred… twenty-one… one thousand two hundred… twenty-two…"
If any of his classmates saw him now, they would never believe the calm, unhurried boy from class was capable of this kind of effort.
The sky darkened.
From the four o'clock dismissal until full nightfall, Adrian had trained nearly four hours at high intensity. That was enough.
He wasn't the type to train until he broke.
He was training to survive—training to live longer.
Pushing himself past his limits every day would only leave hidden injuries, and with the medical knowledge he'd studied under Tsunade's influence, Adrian understood exactly where those limits were.
Consistency mattered more than madness.
The shinobi world was cruel… but it also had its bright sides.
And Adrian had no interest in dying young.
Near the valley ran a waterfall. He cleaned himself, used chakra to dry his clothes, then slung his gear over his shoulder and headed home, stomach growling.
He even found himself humming a light tune from his old world as he walked.
Then, passing through a stretch of thick leaves and shadow, Adrian stopped.
His right hand slid to the hilt of the katana in his left.
It was fully dark now. Most families would be eating dinner. Aside from shinobi training in the back mountain, civilians rarely came here.
Yet Adrian felt it—
A presence, hidden in a tree not far ahead.
He couldn't see chakra like an Uchiha or Hyūga, but his instincts were sharp—and the Flower-Flower Fruit gave him an edge most people didn't understand.
He triggered his ability without making a sound.
High above, a single leaf unfurled an eye.
Moonlight glinted off a metal forehead protector.
Not Konoha.
Sunagakure.
"A Sand ninja?" Adrian's eyes narrowed slightly. "Why would Suna be here…? If I remember right, they should be fighting Iwa soon."
Whatever the reason, a shinobi sneaking near Konoha's back mountain wasn't here for sightseeing.
Damn…
If Adrian hadn't revealed his awareness, there might've been room to slip away.
But now the enemy knew he'd been discovered.
The attack came instantly.
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh!
Kunai tore through the air, thrown with lethal precision, sealing off Adrian's routes of escape.
"Seriously…?"
Adrian drew his blade in one smooth motion and swung.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Steel snapped the incoming kunai out of their trajectories.
The rest buried themselves deep into the dirt, only their rings visible—proof of the Sand ninja's strength.
A figure stepped into view on the branch, looking down with cold amusement and unmistakable killing intent.
"Interesting kid. You predicted my throws and blocked them cleanly." His eyes sharpened. "Clan child, are you?"
He was a Sunagakure chūnin scout.
He'd infiltrated the Land of Fire with difficulty—only to be spotted by an eight- or nine-year-old child.
That alone was unacceptable.
So close to Konoha, he had to erase Adrian immediately. If he delayed, reinforcements would arrive and the mission would fail.
Without another word, the Sand ninja drew a short blade and lunged.
No hesitation.
No questions.
Only murder.
Adrian's smile vanished.
If this man was here to kill, then Adrian had no reason to hold back.
As the Sand ninja charged, he saw Adrian standing still and thought the child had frozen in fear.
Just a kid…
He raised his blade for the finishing strike—
"Hook Claw."
Two hands bloomed from the Sand ninja's shoulders in an instant—one gripping his jaw, the other locking onto the back of his skull.
Before he could react—
Crack.
The sound of a spine snapping echoed through the dark.
The Sand chūnin's eyes went wide, pupils dilating as his body went limp.
Adrian's strength was enough to break wood with ease.
A neck was nothing.
And this wasn't even the first chūnin he'd killed this way.
Without chakra reinforcement, a shinobi's body wasn't so different from an ordinary person's.
Thud.
The corpse collapsed at Adrian's feet—eyes still wide, head twisted unnaturally far.
Adrian didn't relax immediately.
He watched. Listened. Searched.
Substitution Technique. Hidden allies. Traps.
Only after confirming there was no follow-up did he look down again—only to feel nausea rise hard in his throat.
He clenched his teeth and bit the inside of his cheek.
"…I really don't belong in this world," he whispered. "I've killed before, but I still can't get used to it."
In the twenty-first century, he'd lived more than twenty years in a civilized society. He'd barely even killed animals.
The fact he wasn't shaking was already an achievement.
He forced the sickness down.
"The Third War is getting closer," Adrian muttered. "Even Konoha's outskirts aren't safe anymore."
He didn't loot the body. He didn't clean the battlefield.
Instead, he flashed away with Body Flicker, disappearing into the forest.
His methods weren't refined enough to fool ANBU-level trackers anyway. Leaving was the safest choice.
Reporting it would be even worse. Adrian had no desire to place himself under Konoha's upper leadership's microscope.
If anything came of it…
Tsunade could handle the fallout.
And the truth was, the fight had been so fast and quiet it was smaller than the noise Adrian made during training.
It wasn't until deep into the night that patrol shinobi finally discovered the scene.
"Captain, something's here."
A squad of Konoha shinobi arrived in green flak jackets, accompanied by a large gray dog—an Inuzuka.
The Uchiha Military Police handled village security, but Konoha's leadership never fully trusted them. Barrier teams and patrol units existed alongside the police force.
One shinobi stared at the corpse, stunned. The head twisted nearly one hundred and eighty degrees… the blood at the face… it was clearly dead without needing to touch it.
Another crouched and checked quickly. "Sunagakure chūnin scout. Time of death… about two hours ago."
A third shinobi studied the kunai embedded in the soil, then the body's position. "It ended fast. Kunai first, then close-range… and the neck was snapped instantly. But this…?"
He didn't finish.
Because the scene looked like something impossible—like an unseen pair of hands had appeared from nowhere and twisted the man's neck.
Ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu… none of it explained this cleanly.
"Inuzuka—Blackmaru," the captain ordered.
The dog's nose twitched. Then it spoke.
"Follow me."
They secured the body and moved swiftly, tracking through the night—
until they stopped in front of Tsunade's estate.
"…What?"
The shinobi exchanged looks.
"Tsunade-sama?" someone whispered. "I mean… only someone like her could kill an infiltrator that quietly."
"But… is she even back in the village?"
"Doesn't matter. If a scout reached the back mountain, he was at least elite chūnin. If he died like this, it had to be someone on Tsunade-sama's level."
"It's late. And she didn't report it." The captain frowned. "Strange… but we'll compile everything and report to the Hokage."
"Understood."
Behind a window not far away, Adrian stood in the darkness, watching with narrowed eyes until the patrol finally left.
"…That damn dog," he muttered under his breath. "If this blows up, I swear—"
The next morning, Hiruzen Sarutobi studied the report in his hands, brows furrowing.
"…When did Tsunade return?"
Tsunade had stopped taking missions after developing hemophobia. Her most recent departure had been for clan matters—something Hiruzen was well aware of.
Still, he didn't overthink it.
Perhaps she truly had come back quietly.
He set the report down, already considering sending ANBU to confirm it—
—and unaware that the real "culprit" was currently sitting in a classroom, wearing a mild, harmless smile.
Advance Chapters available on Patreon
patreon.com/CrimsonHub