Fire Country. Konoha Village. Year 33 of the Leaf Calendar, April.
Hoshino Yu walked down the street with his hands stuffed in his pockets, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else on earth.
Beside him, a blond-haired, blue-eyed kid in a tracksuit kept trying to rope him into conversation. Hoshino Yu kept not taking the bait.
The streets were packed with parents dragging their kids along, expressions ranging from stiff and serious to flat-out grim. A handful actually looked happy about it.
Everyone was heading in the same direction.
Today was the first day of the Ninja Academy.
Hoshino Yu looked miserable.
He still couldn't figure out what had short-circuited in his brain that day — the day he'd let a golden-haired kid named Namikaze Minato talk him into enrolling at some ninja school.
"Yu, why do you look like you're heading to your own funeral?" Minato asked, sharp enough to notice, warm enough to actually care. He studied the boy walking beside him — dark hair, dark eyes, clean-cut features, dressed sharp and casual. "Seriously. You okay?"
"Fantastic," Hoshino Yu muttered flatly. "If happiness added years to your life, I'd be immortal right now." He slid a sideways glance at the perpetually sunny boy next to him. "What's even good about enrolling, anyway? Why did I ever say yes to you..."
He let the sentence die.
Everyone knew what becoming a ninja meant: eventually, you ended up on a battlefield.
Sure, things looked peaceful right now. But Hoshino Yu knew better. The Second Great Ninja War was only a few years out. Then the Third would follow close behind. Which meant there was a very real, very unpleasant chance of getting dragged to the front lines sometime in the near future.
And the golden boy walking beside him? The future Yellow Flash? In the timeline Hoshino Yu remembered, Minato graduated the Academy at ten years old and shipped straight out to war.
He kept the anxiety buried. Didn't let it show.
He didn't know if he'd survive that checkpoint.
His parents were long gone — no one to mourn him, really. But now there was this warm, annoyingly earnest blond best friend walking beside him.
As for his golden finger...
He had a system. Technically.
It just happened to be completely, catastrophically wrong.
He'd transmigrated into the Naruto world, and the half-transparent panel that had blinked to life in his mind was running One Piece quests.
What kind of cosmic joke was that?
He still remembered the first time the system activated, two years ago:
[Welcome to One Piece— ERROR DETECTED. RESTARTING...]
...
...
[Restart successful! One Piece World loaded. Hoshino Yu, congratulations on your successful transmigration! Your Grand Voyage officially begins!]
[Grand Voyage Quest System activating... refreshing quest log.]
[Main Quest received: Meet the protagonist of One Piece — Monkey D. Luffy, the Straw Hat Boy.]
[Quest Reward: Rumble-Rumble Fruit ×1 / Personal Attribute Panel: LOCKED]
[Current Progress: 0%]
That was it.
Meet the Straw Hat Boy. In the middle of the Hidden Leaf Village. Where exactly was he supposed to find Luffy?!
Why couldn't the system send him somewhere useful — like the Bleach world to hunt for Tailed Beasts, or the Dragon Ball world to track down the Otsutsuki Clan?
For the first two years, Hoshino Yu had actually searched. Combed the entire shinobi world for any trace of a Straw Hat. Desperate enough that last year — at the ripe age of five — he'd sat down and written the entire One Piece story as a novel, hoping some chuunibyou teenager would read it, catch the dream, and somehow summon Luffy into existence for him to complete the quest.
What actually happened was that he became Konoha's resident child prodigy author.
The book sold surprisingly well — partly because he'd woven the Will of Fire into the themes, and partly because the story was just good. Even Jiraiya, the Third Hokage's prized student, had praised it enthusiastically.
It filled his empty wallet, at least. But it didn't produce a single Straw Hat wearing rubber boy.
At that point, he'd almost made peace with it. Forget the quest. Live off royalties. Lie low, dodge the wars, die of old age like a normal rich person.
Except that wasn't really an option either.
In this world, power was everything. A rich man with strength and a rich man without it weren't even the same species.
And ever since his novel blew up, he'd started noticing eyes on him at night. Someone watching his house from the shadows.
He had a pretty good guess who. There was a certain shadowy organization with "Root" in the name that made an excellent scapegoat.
Minato — his neighbor, his childhood friend, the boy who lived next door — had apparently noticed something was wrong. Which was why he'd personally dragged Hoshino Yu to enroll at the Academy.
Better to be busy and visible than alone and interesting, Hoshino Yu supposed.
The two of them talked as they walked, and before long, the Ninja Academy gates came into view.
The Hokage Rock loomed in the distance, ancient and immovable. The cherry trees lining the school entrance still held a few straggling petals between bright new leaves, the last breath of spring clinging stubbornly to the green.
Beautiful, really. If you ignored the poorly-disguised worry on every parent's face.
Shinobi guards in Leaf headbands maintained order at the gate, and Hoshino Yu exhaled a long, suffering sigh.
"Hahhh..."
"Come on, stop sighing!" Minato slung an arm around his shoulder, grinning like sunrise. "We're here. Might as well enjoy it. Besides — becoming a ninja, protecting peace in the shinobi world? That's your philosophy, Yu. You're the one who drilled it into me when we were kids."
"That was then." Hoshino Yu gave him a tired look. "Now I just want both of us to survive."
He meant it more literally than Minato knew.
In the original story, this guy was dead by twenty-four. Hoshino Yu was absolutely going to do something about that — he just hadn't figured out the what yet.
It was funny. When he'd first arrived in this world, he'd been burning with ambition. Big plans. Grand schemes.
Now? Pure salt-fish energy. Completely horizontal.
Every other transmigrator got the good stuff — Uchiha bloodline, Senju heritage, some broken innate talent or another. What did he get? A bugged system quest he might never complete, and a good memory.
Just incredible. Truly.
He was still debating whether to actually step through the gate when the commotion hit.
"Is that — wait, is that Hoshino Yu?! The author of The Grand Voyage?! He's enrolling today?!"
"OH IT IS— IT IS!! YU-BAAABE!! WE LOVE YOU!!"
"Who's the cute blond next to him?! I love him too!"
"Little Yu! Little Yu!! UPDATE THE MANGA!! I've been a fan since chapter one!!"
"Pssh. He's the same age as me. What's so special about him — I could write that too if I tried..."
Hoshino Yu immediately turtled his neck and grabbed Minato's sleeve, dragging him toward the gate at a faster pace.
He really couldn't help his popularity. The Grand Voyage had earned him a terrifying army of dedicated fans — the "Daddy Fan" variety who would die for you, and the "Mommy Fan" variety who showed up because of his face. He was six years old with baby fat still in his cheeks, and somehow already developing the foundation of a very handsome face.
Minato was catching strays too, getting attention by pure proximity.
The only thing keeping it from becoming a full riot was the sharp-eyed shinobi standing guard at the entrance.
"Yu's still as popular as ever," Minato said cheerfully, arm still around his shoulder.
"Keep it up and I'll write a new book," Hoshino Yu shot back with a sly smile. "Secrets of the Ninja Academy — starring a very handsome blond hero named Namikaze Minato. I promise you'll become the most talked-about student in school. Maybe the whole village."
Minato immediately started waving both hands in horror, the tips of his ears going pink.
"Please. Please spare me. Keep that honor for yourself."
After filling out their enrollment forms, the new students and their families were herded into the Academy courtyard.
On a raised platform at the front stood a lean, bearded man in white robes and a Hokage's hat. The Third Hokage. His voice was measured and grave as he recited the words that every new class had heard before him.
"May the leaves of the Leaf flutter wherever the wind carries them. May the fire of the Will never die..."
Minato stood at perfect attention beside Hoshino Yu, expression serious, eyes bright with something close to reverence. Practically vibrating with it.
"Bro." Hoshino Yu leaned over. "You're not actually moved by this, are you."
"Hmm? Why wouldn't I be? Lord Hokage's words are incredible."
"...I'll tell you a story later. About a certain professor." Hoshino Yu shook his head slowly.
He lowered his voice and started scanning the crowd.
Minato noticed. "Who are you looking for?"
"Someone with red hair..."
He was thinking about Kushina — she should be enrolling the same year according to canon, even ending up in the same class. But before he could spot her, something else caught his eye.
To his left and slightly ahead: a figure.
A figure wearing a straw hat.
Red shirt. Rolled-up pants. Yellow rubber shoes.
The style was a little off. The height was a little taller than the other students — probably an upperclassman. But the silhouette —
That silhouette was burned into his memory.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Like storm clouds parting for sunlight, the long-dormant quest panel in his mind flickered.
[Main Quest: Meet the protagonist of One Piece — Monkey D. Luffy, the Straw Hat Boy.]
[Quest Reward: Rumble-Rumble Fruit ×1 / Personal Attribute Panel: LOCKED]
[Current Progress: 50%]
"What?! The quest just WOKE UP—and it's already halfway done?!"
Minato felt Hoshino Yu's subtle tremor and followed his gaze. Quietly: "Yu... what's wrong with that person?"
"Does he look familiar to you?" Hoshino Yu barely kept his voice under control, leaning in close.
Minato studied the figure carefully. After a moment:
"...Red shirt. Rolled-up pants. Straw hat." A beat. "He looks like... the character from your novel. Like Luffy."
"EXACTLY."
There was genuine heat in Hoshino Yu's voice. A flash of light in his dark eyes.
For two years, he'd tracked down every straw hat he could find in the shinobi world. Every single one had been a dead end.
But this one made the system react.
That meant only one thing.
Monkey D. Luffy was actually here.
The Rumble-Rumble Fruit was as good as his. No more spending every other night terrified of dying in a war he wanted no part of. No more being the one guy with no powers in a world full of superpowered murderers—
The straw-hatted figure seemed to sense the attention. He turned his head, scanning around.
Then he turned fully, and his eyes met Hoshino Yu's.
That gaze.
That face.
That distinctive scar beneath the eye—
Hoshino Yu's expression did something it had never done once in six years of calculated composure.
It broke completely.
"WHAT THE—"
"SERIOUSLY?! WHERE IS THIS GUY FROM?!"
"That's not Luffy!! That's— that's— WHERE'S MY LUFFY?!"
The shout detonated across the courtyard.
Every student. Every parent. Every shinobi guard.
All of them turned simultaneously, frowning at the two small children responsible for desecrating the sacred recitation of the Will of Fire.
Minato's face went from pale to deep crimson in about half a second. He immediately pressed his palms together in frantic apology to the crowd, then yanked Hoshino Yu close and hissed:
"Yu! Keep it DOWN! And... who on earth are you even talking about?!"
Hoshino Yu stared at the straw-hatted stranger.
The stranger stared back at him.
The scar was right. The hat was right. The vibe was completely wrong.
He pressed a hand over his face.
This quest is going to be the death of me.
TO BE CONTINUED