The earthquake didn't make sense.
In the heart of Sendai, Japan, the tectonic plates shouldn't have been so... picky. Standing in his high school hallway, Kenji watched in frozen horror as a single, violent fissure ripped through the floor beneath his feet. The lockers to his left didn't rattle. The students three meters away didn't even stumble. But for Kenji, the world became a roar of crushing concrete and darkness.
Then came the silence. And then, the heat.
When Kenji—now Hiroshi—opened his eyes, he wasn't met with the sterile white of a hospital or the rubble of his school. He was staring at a ceiling of dark, polished cedar. The air was thick with the scent of Hegusa (medicinal herbs) and the metallic tang of whetstones on steel.
"He is awake," a voice whispered. It was deep, rasping with the fatigue of a man who lived in armor.
A face leaned into his blurred field of vision. It was a man with sharp, predatory features and long, dark hair tied back in a warrior's topknot. On his high-collared robes was a crest Hiroshi didn't recognize from any history book: a stylized sun eclipsed by three blades.
"He has the eyes," the man murmured, a rare spark of hope in his tired gaze. "The aptitude of the Ancestors. My son... Hiroshi of the Minamoto."
As a month passed, Hiroshi's infant mind—bolstered by his adult consciousness—began to process his new reality. He wasn't just in a different world; he was in a different era. This was the Warring States Period. He heard the hushed reports brought to his father, the Clan Head. They spoke of the Uchiha's rising brutality and the Senju's endless vitality.
But as he lay in his crib, Hiroshi felt something terrifyingly powerful thrumming in his tiny chest. It wasn't just Chakra; it was a crystalline, instinctive understanding of it. When he moved his fingers, he could feel the spiritual and physical energies weaving together with zero effort. It was Indra's Aptitude—the legendary genius of the Sage's eldest son.
Yet, a cold dread settled in his stomach.
The Minamoto Clan, he thought, his infant brow furrowing in a way that unnerved his wet nurses. I know the lore. I know the history of Konohagakure and the Hidden Villages. I know the names of the survivors in Boruto's time.
The realization hit him like a physical blow. The Minamoto weren't in the history books. They weren't in the village. They didn't exist in the future.
We're a dead clan, Hiroshi realized. In the original timeline, we were likely wiped out before Hashirama and Madara ever shook hands. A powerhouse lost to the meat grinder of this era.
He looked at his small, soft hands. He had the scientific knowledge of the 21st century and the talent of a Ninjutsu god. He wouldn't let his family become a footnote. If the great clans were destined to kill each other over blood-stained forests, he would take his people to the wastes and build something they couldn't even imagine.
******
Five years had passed, and Hiroshi Minamoto was no longer a typical child. To the Minamoto clansmen, he was a terrifying prodigy—a boy who spoke with the gravity of an elder and moved with the precision of a master assassin. His father, the Clan Head, watched in stunned silence as his son bypassed years of traditional training.
Hiroshi didn't just "mold" chakra; he understood its molecular frequency. While other children struggled to stick a leaf to their forehead, Hiroshi was already experimenting with Elemental Transformation.
"Father," Hiroshi said one evening, standing in the middle of the clan's training courtyard. He held a simple kunai. Without a single hand sign, the blade began to glow with a high-frequency vibration, humming like a hornet. "The wars between the Senju and Uchiha are consuming the world. If we stay here, the Minamoto will be nothing but bone meal for the Land of Fire's forests."
"We are warriors, Hiroshi," his father replied, his voice heavy with the weight of the Warring States Period. "Where else would we go?"
"To the place no one wants," Hiroshi said, his eyes sharp with Indra's cold genius. "The Northern Barrens."
Weeks later, a strange caravan moved toward the salt-flats of the north. It wasn't just the Minamoto clan. Following them were hundreds of Commoners—refugees, farmers, and orphans who had fled the collateral damage of the Great Nations' skirmishes. They were broken, starving, and terrified.
When they reached the edge of the Barrens—a vast, cracked expanse of alkaline soil where nothing grew—the commoners halted. The Minamoto warriors whispered among themselves, wondering if their young heir had finally lost his mind.
"Lord Hiroshi," an old farmer croaked, falling to his knees. "There is no water here. No shade. We fled the swords only to die of thirst."
Hiroshi stepped forward. He looked at the "useless" land not with despair, but with the eyes of a 21st-century engineer.
"You see a grave," Hiroshi's voice rang out, carrying across the silent crowd. "I see the foundation of Mishiru no Kuni—the Unknown Land. I promised you a nation where no Daimyo would trade your lives for a border. Today, we build the first well."
Hiroshi knelt and pressed his small hands into the salt-crust. He didn't use a flashy Ninjutsu. Instead, he used his Indra-level aptitude to sense the deep subterranean pressure.
Earth Release: Geological Fracture.
Water Release: Capillary Ascent.
The ground didn't explode; it hummed. Using a precise application of Doton to create a reinforced stone shaft and Suiton to draw from a deep, hidden aquifer, a geyser of crystal-clear water erupted ten meters into the air.
The commoners gasped, rushing forward to bathe in the "miracle." But Hiroshi wasn't finished. He turned to the Minamoto elders, who were staring at the water in disbelief.
"This is not a miracle," Hiroshi told them firmly. "It is Calculation. We will build irrigation, we will treat this soil with minerals, and we will build a city that is invisible to the world. We are no longer just a clan. We are the architects of a new era."
The Minamoto clansmen looked at each other. They didn't fully understand his talk of "minerals" or "architecture," but as they watched the starving commoners begin to cheer, they realized their heir wasn't just a ninja. He was a King in the making.